Barbara Taylor Bradford, the novelist, was born in Upper Armley, Leeds, Yorkshire, on 10 May 1933, the only child of Winston and Freda Taylor. At 16 she became a reporter for the Yorkshire Evening Post, and by the age of 20 was both an editor and a columnist on London's Fleet Street. After her marriage to American film producer Robert Bradford in 1963, she moved to the USA, where she continued her journalistic career with great success and also wrote children's books and eight books on interior design. Her career as a writer of fiction, however, really began in 1979, when she had her first novel, A Woman of Substance, published and it became an enduring bestseller. Since then she has written many other successful novels, of which some have been made into television mini-series, and many have been translated into other languages. Her achievements have been recognised by several universities, including the University of Leeds, which honoured her with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1990, and she has also received many other cultural awards. Now an American citizen, she lives in New York.
From the guide to the Literary papers and publications of Barbara Taylor Bradford, with related materials, ca. 1940-2004, (Leeds University Library)
