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The novelist writes about strong, independent women. But her own resilience was tested when her husband died earlier this year
So long was Barbara Taylor Bradford’s novel A Woman of Substance – the book that would launch her career and go on to sell 32m copies – that she measured it by weight, not number of pages. It was 16 and a half pounds (7.5kg), she says, her eyes glittering. “I wrote more,” she says. “We cut a lot.” Her then editor made her take out a whole chapter – the one that followed her character Blackie O’Neill through the first world war (he was a friend to the book’s heroine, the kitchen maid turned retail tycoon Emma Harte). “I really fought this. But she took it out, and I was infuriated.”
It occurs to Bradford, with the 40th anniversary edition of the book on the table in front of us, that the chapter might have made its way back in. “I never thought of looking,” she says, flicking through the 800-plus pages, then she starts reading aloud. She looks up and says excitedly: “What a good beginning!” Then she goes back to it. Goodness, I think, she’s going to read the whole thing. A well-timed waiter comes to our table at the Dorchester hotel to pour tea; she closes the book, greets him by name and they have a chat. Continue reading...