Barbara Taylor Bradford - A Woman of Substance

BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD

A Woman of Substance

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Granada Publishing 1980

This paperback edition 2019

Copyright © Barbara Taylor Bradford 1979

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019 Cover photograph © Sandra Cunningham/Trevillion Images

Barbara Taylor Bradford asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007321421

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007346943

Version: 2019-12-05

To discover more about Barbara’s books and sign up for her newsletter, visit www.barbarataylorbradford.co.uk

‘Memorable and moving … a sure-fire winner’

Express

‘Queen of the genre’

Sunday Times

‘Few novelists are as consummate as Barbara Taylor Bradford at keeping the reader turning the page. She is one of the best at spinning yarns’

Guardian

‘The storyteller of substance’

The Times

‘A sweeping saga full of passion and intrigue’

Hello!

For Bob and my parents – who know the reason why

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long, yet get little from life.

Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

– MONTAIGNE, Essays

I have the heart of a man, not of a woman, and I am not afraid of anything …

– ELIZABETH I, Queen of England

Dear readers,

I first encountered the force of nature that is Emma Harte when I raced through the pages of A Woman of Substance late into the night, many years ago. I was utterly gripped as I followed Emma’s journey from Yorkshire kitchen maid, pregnant, alone and friendless, to building her first Harte’s store – and then to becoming one of the most powerful women in the world, with a dynasty of her own.

Many of you will also, like me, remember the wonderful Jenny Seagrove playing Emma in the television mini-series that held viewers spellbound, as we watched the determined servant girl striding over the Yorkshire moors with Liam Neeson as Blackie O’Neill at her side. Barbara has never left behind her love for her home county, and Yorkshire’s wild beauty fills this novel.

Tough, uncompromising and always true to her Yorkshire roots, Emma Harte captivated the imagination of millions of readers. Her story is one of grit, ambition and determination; a woman staying true to her values and refusing to be bowed by the slings and arrows of fortune, bursting through the glass ceiling before it even had a name.

Barbara created a heroine who has inspired women for the past four decades – inspired them to be courageous, break rules and follow their dreams. I hope you will enjoy discovering her story – or perhaps rediscovering – in this new edition, published to commemorate the 40 thanniversary of its first publication. There has never been a woman of substance quite like Emma Harte.

Warmest wishes,

Fern Britton

It was in 1976 that I had the glimmer of an idea for a novel. In actuality it was the image of a young girl, wrapped in a shawl and walking through the mist on the Yorkshire moors. I had no idea who she was, but I wanted to know more about her and quite suddenly I knew she would become a woman of some importance one day.

For the next few days I thought about the girl of the moors, and as she grew flesh and became real to me I, in turn, filled with excitement. So much so that I knew I had to share her with my husband Bob. As a movie producer, he was used to listening to plots told to him by screenwriters and was a receptive listener. By the time I had told him the girl’s life story, improvising as I went along, he was genuinely sold on the novel, and as excited as I was. He told me to write an outline, which I did, and then we took it apart together and I rewrote it several times until we were sure it was everything I wanted it to be. My only worry was that it was somewhat parochial, since most of it played out in Yorkshire.

But this did not bother Bob at all, who told me that it was the girl who was captivating, who the reader cared about – and that location was not all that important. Readers will become intrigued by her , will want to keep reading to see what happens to her, how she ends up.

What I wanted was to tell a good tale about an enterprising woman, who makes it in a man’s world of business when women weren’t doing that. A woman who becomes a woman of substance.

I suppose I succeeded more than I realised at the time. Emma Harte and her life story captured everybody’s imagination, and still does. Tough and often ruthless, brilliant when it came to dissimulation, she was an amazing businesswoman, and could be a powerful and fearsome adversary when she thought this was necessary.

No author sits at a desk for hours at a time wanting to write a book that nobody reads. I am proud that my first novel, published in 1979, has sold millions of copies in ninety countries and forty languages. Remarkably, it’s still selling today forty years later.

In fact, A Woman of Substance has become a classic itself, and I smile every time I see the phrase ‘a woman of substance’ used to describe other successful or unique women. My title has seeped into everyday language and is used all the time, in newspapers, magazines and on the airwaves.

I started writing when I was seven years old, encouraged by my mother who was a voracious reader. When I was ten she found one of my stories and sent it to a children’s magazine. Imagine my surprise and joy when they accepted it, and even paid me seven shillings and sixpence for it. But it was the by-line ‘Barbara Taylor’ that impressed me and I announced to my mother that I was going to be a writer when I grew up. Many years later when I gave my mother a copy of the book she looked at me and said quietly, ‘This is the fulfilment of your childhood dream’. It was. But it might not have ever been written if Bob had not been excited by my storytelling, and had convinced me to do an outline. Even when I doubted that outline, he dismissed this idea very swiftly. It was his total confidence in my ability that gave me the courage to write my first novel, and to keep on writing many more. In fact, his love and devotion helped to create my whole career, and I couldn’t have done it without him by my side. And that is why every book is dedicated to him with all my love and gratitude, and always will be.