The Great Dictator
A Life of Barbara Cartland
$33.29
- Paperback
320 pages
- Release Date
8 September 2026
Summary
Penniless virgins. Reckless dukes. Flappers. Airmen. Suffragettes. Barbara Cartland made them fall in love. She wrote 723 books without touching a typewriter: instead, she reclined on her sofa with a Pekinese on her lap - and romantic fiction billowed out of her.
This dazzling biography reveals the woman behind the powder and mascara - a clever, socially precarious writer navigating a twentieth-century world of war-damaged men, class conflict and sexual peril.
After 49 proposa…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781399715805 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 1399715801 |
| Author: | Matthew Sweet |
| Publisher: | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Imprint: | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 320 |
| Release Date: | 8 September 2026 |
| Dimensions: | 234mm x 153mm |
You Can Find This Book In
About The Author
Matthew Sweet
Matthew Sweet is co-writer, with Mark Gatiss, of the 6-part detective series, Bookish. He is the author of:
- Inventing the Victorians (Faber, 2001)
- Shepperton Babylon (Faber, 2005)
- The West End Front (Faber, 2011)
- Operation Chaos (Picador 2018)
- The New Forest Murders (2025)
Matthew presents Free Thinking on BBC Radio 4 and Sound of Cinema on BBC Radio 3. Additional broadcasting includes The Culture Show (BBC2), Checking into History (C4), five series of The Philosophers Arms (Radio 4) and 1922: The Birth of Now, a ten-part history of modernism (Radio 4).
He has been film critic of the Independent on Sunday, photography critic of Newsweek and fashion columnist for 1843/The Economist.
In 2017 he and the baker Frances Quinn achieved a chocolate-related Guinness World record that held good until 2022, when it was broken by Ant and Dec.
Matthew lives with his family in London.
Returns
This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.