Barbara Hamilton Cartland, a romantic, died on May 21st, aged 98

Barbara Cartland

Barbara Cartland | Obituary | The Economist

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Obituary

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OVER the past year or two the name Barbara Cartland has been mentioned by writers in The Economist at least six times, usually as a synonym for romanticism of one sort or another. No doubt other publications have found it equally useful. Perhaps the adjective Cartlandish may even creep into the dictionaries. Barbara Cartland would have approved of that. She was worried about her prospects for immortality, as indeed she had reason to be. Some time ago she sent to the editors of London newspapers a thick folder containing “The History of Barbara Cartland”, and subtitled “How I want to be remembered.”

OVER the past year or two the name Barbara Cartland has been mentioned by writers in The Economist at least six times, usually as a synonym for romanticism of one sort or another. No doubt other publications have found it equally useful. Perhaps the adjective Cartlandish may even creep into the dictionaries. Barbara Cartland would have approved of that. She was worried about her prospects for immortality, as indeed she had reason to be. Some time ago she sent to the editors of London newspapers a thick folder containing “The History of Barbara Cartland”, and subtitled “How I want to be remembered.”

Such an offering was bound to be treated with suspicion by the media's guardians of truth, even though, as in Barbara Cartland's case, it was bound with pink ribbon and smelt of scent. Those who actually read it were intrigued with its detail. Being made a dame (a knighthood for a woman) was recorded, of course. But so was being honoured by the National Home Furnishing Association of Colorado Springs. Her entries in reference books show the same anxious attention to detail. For the benefit of scholars delving into her oeuvre she notes helpfully that “Cupid Rides Pillion”, one of her 723 novels, is also known as “Dangerous Love”. Her entry in “Who's Who” is the longest in the book.

There might indeed be a doctorate awaiting someone brave enough to read through her millions of words and offer plausible conclusions about why she became a household name. An early surprise might be that as a young woman Barbara Cartland showed signs of being a gifted writer. In those days she took a year over a book, not the couple of weeks she gave to her later work. She worked too for the Daily Express, which under Beaverbrook never allowed a sentence of sloppy writing. But she was perpetually hard up, a grave inhibition for a pretty woman who wanted to enjoy the high life of London. She decided that the quickest way to get rich was to write trash. Lots of writers do that, but she was among the best, becoming a power in the vast trash industry that envelops popular culture, in pop music, films, television and in the arts.

There might indeed be a doctorate awaiting someone brave enough to read through her millions of words and offer plausible conclusions about why she became a household name. An early surprise might be that as a young woman Barbara Cartland showed signs of being a gifted writer. In those days she took a year over a book, not the couple of weeks she gave to her later work. She worked too for the Daily Express, which under Beaverbrook never allowed a sentence of sloppy writing. But she was perpetually hard up, a grave inhibition for a pretty woman who wanted to enjoy the high life of London. She decided that the quickest way to get rich was to write trash. Lots of writers do that, but she was among the best, becoming a power in the vast trash industry that envelops popular culture, in pop music, films, television and in the arts.

Respectability was important to Barbara Cartland. No one “rolls around naked in my books,” she said. “I do allow them to go to bed together if they're married, but it's all very wonderful and the moon beams.” She said she was born into a more innocent age than today's. She claimed that Muslims appreciated the moral tone of her books. Colonel Qaddafi of Libya was said to be a fan. But the Cartland novels have their own artful form of foreplay, extended over the first 100 pages or so, with relief finally provided by the sanction of marriage. Just as the routine of courtship is constantly renewed in humans, so the Cartland stories are served by a simple plot in which only the scenery and the characters are changed. She liked historical settings. She wrote a biography of Metternich, though academics were discouraged by its title, “The Passionate Diplomat”. Her quickie method of dictating a book to a team of secretaries resembled that of Edgar Wallace, a thriller writer famous in the 1920s, although he managed a mere 175 novels. 

Wallace's name never made it into a dictionary, but some of his quotable remarks have survived. A highbrow, he said, is a man who has found something more interesting than women. If being quotable is the way to be remembered, Barbara Cartland did her very best. She was asked in a radio interview whether she thought that British class barriers had broken down. “Of course they have,” she said, “or I wouldn't be sitting here talking to someone like you.”

She came from a middle-class family, but had aristocratic yearnings. Her daughter, Raine, married the father of Princess Diana. Barbara Cartland thus became Diana's step-grandmother, and was fiercely defensive of her against other members of the royal family. “This royal family are Germans,” she said. “The princess is English.” Like many of her generation in Britain, she found it difficult to regard Germany as other than an enemy. Her father was killed in the first world war and her two brothers in the second.

She lived in a statelyish house in Hertfordshire, where journalists were always welcome, and they usually came away with the material for a readable article. Sometimes she would abandon her prudish public mask and talk about sex with remarkable candour. Yes, she believed that a woman should remain a virgin until she was married, but that a man should be experienced, so that one of the partners would know what to do. How would the man get experience if all women were virgins? He would go to a brothel, of course, she said.

She told a photographer, “I have the body of a young girl, without a line in it.” By then she was an old old lady, and looked it, despite the layers of make-up. He declined her offer to be photographed in the nude. Perhaps, despite her strong will and intelligence, Barbara Cartland's human weakness was to see herself as eternally young.

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Barbara Cartland

Barbara Hamilton Cartland, a romantic, died on May 21st, aged 98

From the May 27th 2000 edition

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