Despite being a successful writer from an early age, it was when her first fictional novel, A Woman of Substance, was published in 1979 that Barbara Taylor Bradford truly stormed into literary history.
Barbara describes the leading character of her novel, Emma Harte, as, ‘a woman who was strong, independent, driven, ambitious, courageous - willing to go out and put herself on the line and do something. I created a women who wanted to conquer the world’.
The lead character in her book captivated the world and is undoubtedly the reason why even today A Woman of Substance ranks as one of the best selling books of all time, worldwide.
Perhaps there is a little bit of Barbara in Emma, as when asked about the effect the book had, Barbara doesn’t mince her words. ‘What I did was create a new kind of fictional heroine or protagonist. Nobody had done it before and I’ve had many imitators.’
Barbara recounts stories of her first published piece at the tender age of ten, sighting her sights high in the world of journalism and her life-long burning desire to write fiction. ‘There was a moment in the ’70s when I said “If I don’t write a novel, or attempt it, and finish a novel I might feel disappointed and frustrated when I’m older. I must try and do it now”‘.
