Barbara Taylor Bradford, one of Britain's most successful novelists, dies aged 91

Author Barbara Taylor Bradford, known for best-selling novels including A Woman of Substance, has died astatine the property of 91.

Published successful 1979, A Woman of Substance sold 30 cardinal copies and spawned 7 sequels and a TV adaptation, which is inactive the most-watched programme successful Channel 4's history.

It was the archetypal of 40 novels by Taylor Bradford; others includ the Ravenscar, Cavendon and the House of Falconer series.

Paying tribute, her steadfast and exertion Lynne Drew said: "Dominating the bestseller lists, she broke caller crushed with her sweeping epic novels spanning generations, novels which were resolutely not romances, and she epitomised the pistillate of substance she created, peculiarly with her ruthless enactment ethic."

The writer was "perennially curious, funny successful everyone and extraordinarily driven", Drew said, and was "an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers".

Charlie Redmayne, main enforcement of steadfast HarperCollins, said: "Barbara Taylor Bradford was a genuinely exceptional writer whose archetypal book, the planetary bestseller A Woman of Substance, changed the lives of truthful galore who work it - and inactive does to this day."

She was "a earthy storyteller" arsenic good arsenic "a great, large friend", helium added.

A Woman of Substance was the rags-to-riches communicative of Emma Harte, a young pistillate who goes from a being a maid to gathering and moving a large section store.

The mini-series was watched by astir 14 cardinal radical connected Channel 4 successful 1985 and was nominated for 2 Emmy Awards.

Emma was played by Jenny Seagrove, who paid tribute to the writer arsenic a "dear friend".

Seagrove recalled gathering Taylor Bradford arsenic a young and tense actress.

"The doorway opens and each I tin accidental is that a powerhouse of glamour and warmth heads towards me, grabs me, hugs me, and says... 'You are my Emma Harte'.

"And that was the commencement of a agelong relationship with the unit of quality that I americium arrogant to telephone my friend."

They "talked astir everything nether the sun", Seagrove said, adding: "She ne'er changed. Success ne'er diluted her warmth and humour oregon her quality to subordinate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner oregon a princess.

"She never, ever forgot that she was conscionable a miss from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good. RIP beloved friend."

A connection from Taylor Bradford's typical connected Monday said she "died peacefully astatine her location yesterday (24 November 2024) pursuing a abbreviated illness, and was surrounded by loved ones to the precise end".

Taylor Bradford was calved successful Leeds, wherever her parent "force-fed maine books", and young Barbara had her archetypal communicative published astatine the property of 10 successful a children’s magazine.

She near schoolhouse astatine 15 to enactment arsenic a typist and copytaker connected the Yorkshire Evening Post, and got her archetypal stories into the newspaper’s pages by surreptitiously slipping them into the sub-editor’s tray.

It took the editors immoderate clip to realise what she was doing, but they past promoted her to beryllium a journalist, and she was the paper’s lone pistillate newsman astatine the time.

Her archetypal books were astir location plan - opening with the Complete Encyclopaedia of Homemaking Ideas successful 1968 - and she wrote a drawstring of entries successful the How to beryllium the Perfect Wife series.

Her archetypal foray into fiction, erstwhile she was successful her mid-40s, brought immense occurrence and broke the mould.

"When I wrote A Woman of Substance I didn't beryllium down and think, I'm going to constitute astir a pistillate warrior who conquers the satellite and smashes the solid ceiling, but I did privation to constitute astir women successful a affirmative way," she told the Guardian successful 2017.

"At the clip determination were a batch of precise sexy books retired determination but the women didn't travel retired of them precise well."

As good arsenic A Woman of Substance, a fig of her different books were turned into TV oregon movie adaptations by her husband, Hollywood shaper Robert Bradford. He died successful 2019.