Cultural historian and biographer Matthew Sweet joins Fi Glover to unpack the astonishing, stranger-than-fiction life of Dame Barbara Cartland, as revealed in his landmark biography The Great Dictator.
Drawing from exclusive, unrestricted access to Cartland's private time-capsule estate at Camfield Place, Sweet looks beyond the iconic pink dresses and fluffy Pekinese dogs to uncover a formidable literary enterprise.
Cartland published 723 books, sold up to one billion copies worldwide, and dictated up to 8,000 words a day from her sofa while taking 90 vitamin pills daily.
Sweet explores her complex personal history—from her family's financial ruin following her grandfather's suicide to receiving 49 marriage proposals from traumatized World War I survivors, her pioneering 1960s sex manuals, and her surprising wartime welfare work for young brides.
