On Nov. 24, the literary world lost another great author. Barbara Taylor Bradford, author of "A Woman of Substance" and 39 other best-selling novels, died at the age of 91 in her home in Manhattan. I am always saddened when an author I admire dies, but Bradford's hit me hard.
I first read "A Woman of Substance" as a teenager, and it is the book that most made me want to become a novelist. More importantly, it made me want to do something great with my life. I, too, wanted to become and be "a woman of substance."
A great book can profoundly impact a person's life, and its message can last long after the final page has been read. A few years ago, I decided to reread "A Woman of Substance" to see if I'd still be as enamored with it as I had been as a teenager. I was, but for different reasons.
"She was born in England into a working-class family whose grit inspired some of her stories... She quit school at 15, became a journalist, married an American film producer and lived for 60 years in New York. She was a self-taught novelist, publishing her first when she was 46."
While I loved Bradford's debut novel, it's the writing life she managed to carve out and then lead up until her death that I so admire. She started from humble beginnings and taught herself how to write novels.
"In 1981, on the strength of her first novel's early sales," said The New York Times obituary on Nov. 25th,"her agent sold her next two books...for $3 million."
Her real life was the stuff of a great rags-to-riches novel; she epitomized the title of her debut novel. She received the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II in 2007 "for her services to literature," according to her official website.
We may have lost her but her legacy lives on just as Emma Harte's story from "A Woman of Substance" continues to live on in many others.