Best-selling novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford dies at 91

Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer,

said Charlie Redmayne, CEO of HarperCollins

Working with a storyteller as remarkable as Barbara for over 20 years was a huge privilege but also a huge amount of fun. Perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven, she loved writing and the conversations we had about her characters were unfailingly the best hours of my week,

said Lynne Drew, Barbara’s long-term publisher and editor at HarperCollins

She made her dreams come true

According to the obituary on her website, when Bradford was recently asked what would be on her epitaph, she replied

I find work more fun than fun

Novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, 90, lives by the Noël Coward quote

It’s a woman who makes a marriage work

On the eve of Barbara's wedding 50 years ago, her mother told her

Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman Of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it - and still does to this day

Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said

It's 1984 and I am about to meet the world-famous legend that is Barbara Taylor Bradford

Seagrove said

I write about mostly ordinary women who go on to achieve the extraordinary.”

The author was often quoted as having said

If at all, as a compassionate woman.”

When asked how she would like to be remembered in a 2014 interview, Taylor Bradford responded

We saw each other whenever she and her beloved Bob were in London,

Seagrove added

That was the start of a long friendship with the force of nature that I am proud to call my friend,

she added

He had a stroke in the night. His last words were, ‘I love you.’ I’m so glad I told him, ‘I love you too, darling.’ A week later he was gone.”

Speaking about his death in an interview with The Guardian in 2021, she said

Success never diluted her warmth and humor or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess,

Seagrove said

And if you want to meet the real Emma, meet me,

Bradford told the Telegraph of London in 2009.

Years later, (Evening Post editor) Keith Waterhouse and I were at an event where the producer Sam Spiegel introduced the star of his new movie,

she told The Guardian in 2021

I’m not going to go down in history as a great literary figure,

she said