Author Barbara Taylor Bradford, known for best-selling novels including A Woman of Substance, has died at the age of 91.

Published in 1979, A Woman of Substance sold 30 million copies and spawned seven sequels and a TV adaptation, which is still the most-watched programme in Channel 4’s history.

It was the first of 40 novels by Taylor Bradford; others includ the Ravenscar, Cavendon and the House of Falconer series.

Paying tribute, her publisher and editor Lynne Drew said: “Dominating the bestseller lists, she broke new ground with her sweeping epic novels spanning generations, novels which were resolutely not romances, and she epitomised the woman of substance she created, particularly with her ruthless work ethic.”

The author was “perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven”, Drew said, and was “an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers”.

Charlie Redmayne, chief executive of publisher HarperCollins, said: “Barbara Taylor Bradford was a truly exceptional writer whose first book, the international bestseller A Woman of Substance, changed the lives of so many who read it – and still does to this day.”

She was “a natural storyteller” as well as “a great, great friend”, he added.

A Woman of Substance was the rags-to-riches tale of Emma Harte, a young woman who goes from a being a maid to building and running a major department store.

The mini-series was watched by almost 14 million people on Channel 4 in 1985 and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.

Emma was played by Jenny Seagrove, who paid tribute to the author as a “dear friend”.

Seagrove recalled meeting Taylor Bradford as a young and nervous actress.

“The door opens and all I can say is that a powerhouse of glamour and warmth heads towards me, grabs me, hugs me, and says… ‘You are my Emma Harte’.

“And that was the start of a long friendship with the force of nature that I am proud to call my friend.”

They “talked about everything under the sun”, Seagrove said, adding: “She never changed. Success never diluted her warmth and humour or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess.

“She never, ever forgot that she was just a girl from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good. RIP dear friend.”

A statement from Taylor Bradford’s representative on Monday said she “died peacefully at her home yesterday (24 November 2024) following a short illness, and was surrounded by loved ones to the very end”.

Taylor Bradford was born in Leeds, where her mother “force-fed me books”, and young Barbara had her first story published at the age of 10 in a children’s magazine.

She left school at 15 to work as a typist and copytaker on the Yorkshire Evening Post, and got her first stories into the newspaper’s pages by surreptitiously slipping them into the sub-editor’s tray.

It took the editors some time to realise what she was doing, but they then promoted her to be a journalist, and she was the paper’s only female reporter at the time.

Her first books were about home design – beginning with the Complete Encyclopaedia of Homemaking Ideas in 1968 – and she wrote a string of entries in the How to be the Perfect Wife series.

Her first foray into fiction, when she was in her mid-40s, brought huge success and broke the mould.

“When I wrote A Woman of Substance I didn’t sit down and think, I’m going to write about a woman warrior who conquers the world and smashes the glass ceiling, but I did want to write about women in a positive way,” she told the Guardian in 2017.

“At the time there were a lot of very sexy books out there but the women didn’t come out of them very well.”

As well as A Woman of Substance, a number of her other books were turned into TV or film adaptations by her husband, Hollywood producer Robert Bradford. He died in 2019.

She was made an OBE for services to literature by Queen Elizabeth in 2007, and was also an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust.

In its tribute, the charity hailed her as “a passionate advocate for improving literacy skills throughout her life”, and said she “helped change lives in some of the UK’s most disadvantaged communities”.