Barbara Taylor Bradford’s success was a long time coming. She was in her forties and had written four mystery tales, none of which survives. Everything changed when she rethought her approach . “One day I sat down with a yellow pad and started asking myself questions,” she told The Times in 2019, referring to her reporter’s training. The result was, she said, a “traditional, old-fashioned saga about a woman who makes it in a man’s world”.
She showed the outline of A Woman of Substance to her husband, Robert Bradford, but “he thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew”. Nevertheless, with his encouragement she sent it to her agent, who read with growing excitement the story of Emma Harte, a Yorkshirewoman from humble