Scheherazade of the 20th Century: Barbara Cartland

Yesterday's London Times

A little romance?

What began as a fluff piece about an eccentric romance novelist turned into a snapshot of a century through the eyes of someone who lived it to the fullest.

Meet Barbara Cartland: extravagant, exaggerated, and … pink. As author of 723 books, she remains the most prolific romance novelist of all time. If you’ve ever seen her, you won’t likely forget her, dripping in jewels, layered in make up, clad in fuchsia, and riding in her classic white Rolls Royce.

We’ll follow Barbara through the Great War, to 1920’s London with the Bright Young Things, to writing, motherhood, political involvement, and World War II. And she’s just getting started, hitting the peak of her career in the 1980s, in her eighties.

Along the way, we’ll rub elbows, (well, maybe more than elbows) with movers and shakers of many decades. For example, have you ever heard of Lord Beaverbrook? Also, you won’t believe who joins the family in the 1970s!

We wrap up with a game you can join in at home. It’s called Oh, Barbara.

While we have little in common with Barbara, and share few of her opinions, we have to respect someone who called her own shots and refused to be sidelined as an octogenarian.
See our SHOW NOTES for photos, some quite rare, sources, and such.