Legendary novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford on love, loss and her milestone birthday…
Whichever way you slice it, Barbara Taylor Bradford is a literary phenomenon.
Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, became one of the best-selling novels of all time after its publication in 1979.
And now, some 44 years later, she’s publishing her 40th, The Wonder of It All. But, despite having sold an incredible 90 million books, she isn’t prepared to put away her pen just yet.
“Like Napoleon, I shall die with my boots on,” she laughs. “I’ve already started plotting my next novel and can’t wait to finish my research and get writing. Once upon a time I was writing A Woman of Substance, and now I have to pinch myself as I look at the first few pages of each new book and see this long list of titles.”
So, what motivates her? “I often remind myself of something Noël Coward once said,” she reveals, “Work is more fun than fun!”
Barbara’s long and successful career was matched by a happy marriage to movie executive Bob Bradford, who she met on a blind date. When he died in 2019, they’d been together for 58 years, and she feels his loss keenly.
“When people ask me about him, I start to cry,” she says, speaking from her Manhattan apartment. “I’m lonely without him. It’s like half of me has been chopped off. He had a great personality and a very dry humour. He was my best friend.”
Although Yorkshire-born Barbara has dual British/American citizenship, she refers to herself as an Englishwoman living in New York. So, would she ever move back to the UK on a
