Best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford has died at the age of 91 following a short illness.
The British-American author died peacefully at her home on Sunday, surrounded by loved ones.
Bradford was best known for her acclaimed debut novel A Woman of Substance, which sold over 30 million copies worldwide after its publication in 1979.
The Leeds-born writer, who was awarded an OBE in 2007 for services to literature, completed 40 novels during her lifetime, with her final work The Wonder of It All published last year.
Her books have sold more than 91 million copies worldwide and have been published in more than 40 languages across 90 countries.
A Woman of Substance followed Emma Harte’s journey from servant in rural Yorkshire to head of a business empire, becoming one of the best-selling novels of all time.
The story was adapted into a successful TV mini-series in 1985, starring Liam Neeson and Jenny Seagrove, which garnered two Emmy nominations and drew 13.8 million viewers on Channel 4.
Bradford later published A Man of Honour in 2021, a prequel to her debut novel, following the story of Blackie O’Neill who leaves County Kerry for Leeds.
Actress Jenny Seagrove, who played Emma Harte in the TV adaptation, paid tribute to her “friend” Bradford.
“The door opens and all I can say is that a powerhouse of glamour and warmth heads towards me, grabs me, hugs me, and says… ‘You are my Emma Harte’,” Seagrove recalled of their first meeting in 1984.
She praised Bradford’s enduring humility, saying: “Success never diluted her warmth and humour or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess.”
“She never, ever forgot that she was just a girl from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good,” Seagrove added.
Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of HarperCollins, described Bradford as “a truly exceptional writer” whose first book “changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”
“She was a natural storyteller, deeply proud of her Yorkshire roots,” he said, recalling her time working alongside Keith Waterhouse and Peter O’Toole at the Yorkshire Evening Post.
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Redmayne added there was “some solace in the knowledge that she is now, once again, alongside her beloved Bob.”
Following a private funeral in New York, the author will be laid to rest next to her late husband at the city’s Westchester Hills Cemetery.
Bradford began her career as a typist at the Yorkshire Evening Post aged 15, later becoming the paper’s first woman’s editor.
At 20, she moved to London to work for Woman’s Own magazine and the London Evening News.
She met her future husband, American film producer Robert Bradford, on a blind date in 1961, with the couple marrying in London on Christmas Eve 1963.
They moved to New York in 1964 and remained together for 55 years until his death from a stroke in 2019.
Speaking about his passing to The Guardian in 2021, she said: “His last words were, ‘I love you.’ I’m so glad I told him, ‘I love you too, darling.'”