The birth anniversary of Barbara Cartland went by in July month, and 2025 marks the 100th year of the publication of her first book, Jigsaw. Today, hardly anybody remembers her, but at one time, when circulating libraries still existed, the shelves groaned with her romantic novels that mostly women borrowed and read avidly. She also wrote historical novels and non-fiction, but once she earned the label Queen of Romance, it stuck.
She wrote — or rather dictated to an assistant– an astounding 723 novels that collectively sold over a billion copies. Today, when romance novels cannot sell without steamy scenes, her signature plots about naïve heroines, dashing aristocrats, and chaste love stories, all cloaked in her iconic pink aesthetic, captivated her readers, looking for escapism on idle afternoons.
Her books were not all innocent, and her early writing had a touch of the risqué. Born into a wealthy family that fell into financial troubles, she commenced on a writing career when women did not work outside the home. After a year as a gossip columnist for the Daily Express, she published her first novel, Jigsaw, a society thriller that became a bestseller. According to information on the net, she also began writing and producing somewhat racy plays, one of which, Blood Money (1926), was banned by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office. In the fifties, she wrote a guide to married life, which was also banned! The year 1950 was also when author Georgette Heyer accused her of plagiarism, for using her plots and character names. The case never reached court, however, and both authors continued to have successful careers.
Today her stories might be seen as outdated, but in her time her books were huge bestsellers. The Guinness Book of Records named her as a top selling author, and in 1976 she created a record for writing the most novels in a single year—an astonishing 23. Even as society and sexual norms changed, she believed that romance was more about beauty than sexuality.
Her rose-tinted world no longer exists and in a post-feminist world her heroines (and heroes) are undoubtedly anachronistic. Seen in a contemporary context, her female characters love within the narrow confines of womanhood, in an unapologetically patriarchal society. Cartland’s focus on the heroine’s vulnerability and helplessness, her constant need of protection from a man, is seen as regressive. Now such a portrayal of a woman, whose primary role is to be rescued and controlled by a chivalrous male protagonist, would be interpreted as infantilizing. . Also the idea that lost virginity diminishes a woman, is problematic, more so because the same moral standards are not applied to male characters.
While her heroines fitted into a mold of swooning innocence, Cartland herself was outspoken and established an empire on the strength of her books of dubious literary merit The author, who wore pink chiffon, thick make-up and long fake eyelashes, led, judging by the ideals set in her novels, a “lurid” life, as a piece in The Guardian, noted, “She gave “daring” parties as a high-society hostess in the 1920s and 30s. She married Alexander McCorquodale in 1927 and divorced him in 1933 amidst claims and counterclaims of adultery. She later claimed their daughter – Raine, who went on to become Princess Diana’s stepmother – was in fact the daughter of Prince George, Duke of Kent, and married McCorquodale’s cousin Hugh, who died in 1963. She then maintained a long friendship with Lord Mountbatten of Burma until he was murdered in 1979.”
Yet another facet of the bestselling author’s life comes from a piece by Doug Bonderud in now.northropgrumman.com/, “She was a daredevil, obsessed with the high-society sport of gliding,” he wrote. “Gliders became popular among the upper class during the 1920s and 1930s, and Cartland was an accomplished pilot. Gliders occupy an odd space in aeronautics: They’re what you get when you take a plane and remove their ability to independently sustain flight. Instead, gliders are towed by powered aircraft and then let go for short-haul flights. But this wasn’t enough for Cartland. She arranged for the first long-distance (200-mile) tow and, along with two Royal Air Force officers, designed the first aircraft-towed airmail delivery glider. During World War II, the Allies expanded on her idea, using powered aircraft to tow troop-carrying gliders near their destination and then cutting them loose….Today, a thriving tow-and-glider plane culture exists, informed in large part by Cartland’s work in the early 1930s. Dame Barbara Cartland doesn’t seem like an innovator at first glance but, just like radio-guidance developer Hedy Lamarr, makes it clear that creativity is an unpredictable force — romance novelists and glider revolutionaries aren’t so very far apart as one might initially think.”
Over 98 active years of her life, Barbara Cartland accomplished a lot, but when asked by a journalist, she said, “‘I am very thrilled by what I have achieved in my life and if nothing else, I would like to say a prayer of gratitude because I have helped a great number of people, both physically and spiritually, to find love.”
She also jokingly said about her books, “Oh you don’t want to read them. They’re all the same.” For decades people did, maybe, they still do. Not many writers have lived through their books for a century.
(This piece first appeared in The Free Press Journal)
