Biography

For over twenty years, Barbara Taylor Bradford has been one of the world's most cherished storytellers, selling more than 60 million books in 39 languages in 89 countries. It all started in 1979 when Doubleday published the novelist's saga of the indomitable Emma Harte, which stayed on The New York Times bestseller lists for 15 months. A Woman of Substance was followed by 13 other bestsellers, including two sequels about the Harte family. Her eighteenth novel Three Weeks in Paris is now available from Doubleday.

Like the leading characters in her books, Barbara Taylor Bradford is a strong, hard-working woman who has risen to the top of her profession. For three years in a row, the London Daily Mail ranked her as #1 on the list of highest-earning British women (excluding Queen Elizabeth). In February 1998, the upscale British glossy Harper's & Queen, afforded her the same distinction.

A New Yorker since her marriage to film producer Robert Bradford 35 years ago, Barbara Taylor Bradford continues to maintain her down-to-earth Yorkshire work ethic and sense of humor. When the only child of Freed and Winston Taylor announced at 16 that she wouldn't go to the University of Leeds because she wanted to get on with her writing career, her parents were concerned about her future. They needn't have worried.

Barbara Taylor began her career as a typist at the Yorkshire Evening Post. "I was promoted to cub reporter in six months, probably because I ruined lots of their expensive paper with my bad typing," Bradford says. By age 18 she was the newspaper's Women's Page Editor (the youngest one in all of England), and two years later she worked in London as Fashion Editor of Women's Own, a leading national magazine. Then Barbara Taylor became a reporter, covering every beat from crime to show business, for London's Evening News.

Despite her early decision to leave schooling behind, Barbara Taylor Bradford now holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Leeds. The University's Brotherton Library also houses her original manuscripts which are displayed next to those other famous Yorkshire writers, the Brontë sisters. She also holds Honorary Doctorates of Letters from the University of Bradford in Yorkshire and Connecticut's Teikyo Post University.

Barbara Taylor Bradford serves on the Board of PAL, the Police Athletic League, a charity for underprivileged children, and is on the Council of the Authors Guild of America. She became an American citizen in 1992. She and her husband now share a Manhattan home complete with two adorable fluffy white Bichon Frisés, Chammi (Champagne) and Beaji (Bijoux).

For more information on Three Weeks in Paris, click here.