The Woman of Substance
THE SECRET LIFE THAT INSPIRED
THE RENOWNED STORYTELLER
Barbara Taylor Bradford was born and raised in England. She started her writing career on the Yorkshire Evening Post and later worked as a journalist in London. Her first novel, A Woman of Substance, became an enduring bestseller and was followed by twenty-five others, including the bestselling Harte series. Barbara’s books have sold more than eighty-one million copies worldwide in more than ninety countries and forty languages, and ten mini-series and television movies have been made of her books. In October of 2007, Barbara was appointed an OBE by the Queen for her services to literature. She lives in New York City with her husband, television producer Robert Bradford.
Piers Dudgeon is the author of many works of nonfiction. He worked for ten years as an editor in London, before starting his own publishing company and producing books with authors as diverse as John Fowles, Catherine Cookson, Peter Ackroyd, Daphne du Maurier, Shirley Conran, Ted Hughes and Susan Hill. In 1993, he left London for the North York Moors, where he has written biographies of Sir John Tavener, Edward de Bono, Catherine Cookson, Josephine Cox, J M Barrie and Daphne du Maurier. He is currently working on a series of oral histories of post-industrial Britain and a book about the poet Ted Hughes’s childhood.
CONTENTS
Novels by Barbara Taylor Bradford
Section 1
1. Barbara’s mother, Freda Walker, a nurse at Ripon Fever Hospital in 1922. (Bradford Photo Archive)
3. Winston Taylor, Barbara’s father as a boy of sixteen in the Royal Navy. (Bradford Photo Archive)
5. Map of Armley, dated 1933, the year Barbara was born.
7. Barbara at two years, walking in Gott’s Park, Armley. (Bradford Photo Archive)
8. Tower Lane, Armley, site of Barbara’s first home.
9. No. 38 Tower Lane as it is today.
11. Armley Christ Church School, which Barbara attended with playwright Alan Bennett.
13. Barbara aged three. (Bradford Photo Archive)
14. Christ Church Armley, where Barbara was baptised and received her first Communion.
15. Barbara as a fairy in a Sunday School pantomime. (Bradford Photo Archive)
16. Barbara with bucket and spade, aged five on holiday at Bridlington. (Bradford Photo Archive)
17 and 18. Leeds Market, where Marks & Spencer began and the food halls in Emma Harte’s flag-ship store in A Woman of Substance were inspired. (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Library)
19. Top Withens, the setting for Wuthering Heights. (Yorkshire