Barbara Cartland, Queen of Romance, Born Today 9 July 1901
Dame Barbara Cartland in 1987 by Allan Warren I remember her well, batting her enormous black eyelashes on TV, swathed in glorious frothy frills and furs and lace and hats. Oh, and enormous hair! There was no one like her and never will be again. Of course, she was madly non-pc, especially by today's terms. But, for all that, she had a certain, rather terrifying, panache. She wrote over 700 romantic novels - heaven knows where she managed to find 700 different romantic plots. (Is that possible? I really couldn't say.) She was born in Birmingham Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland. Her writing career was not confined to the romance novels. She was a reporter for The Daily Express in 1920, specialising in writing society material. Some time ago I read one of her biographies, the one about Napoleon's Josephine , and I remember being impressed with the quality of her writing, having had it drummed into me that everything she wrote was formulaic, predictable and trivial.