{"product_id":"the-great-dictator-matthew-sweet-9781399715799","title":"The Great Dictator","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe perfectly outrageous biography of Queen of Romance Barbara Cartland\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLonglisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Deliciously well written\" — Nigella Lawson\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A comic gem of a biography\" — Craig Brown\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Sweet writes with great wit and brio\" — Observer\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Every page is a cliff-hanger\" — The Spectator\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Fantastically enjoyable\" — Literary Review\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Eye-popping\" — The London Standard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Outrageously entertaining\" — The Bookseller\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Wry, affectionate and very readable\" — Louis Theroux\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Jaw-dropping\" — India Knight\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePenniless 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter 49 proposals, she chose the wrong one. What followed was a life stranger than any of her novels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom country house weekends to Fleet Street offices, from Mayfair bedrooms to the divorce court, Matthew Sweet traces Cartland's extraordinary journey through a century of upheaval. Here are terrorist plots, psychic seances, suppressed scandals, plagiarism battles in the cutthroat world of romance publishing — and a surprising turn as a campaigner for Romany rights.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDrawing on unprecedented access to Cartland's vast archives and firsthand accounts from those who knew her, Sweet delivers a wonderfully entertaining study of class, fame, scandal and self-aggrandisement. Part satire, part biography, part social history, The Great Dictator reveals how a literary legend was made.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I really think this book might become the sleeper hit of the Christmas rush.\" — Robert McCrum\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"An excellent, compassionate biography of the wildly prolific romantic novelist.\" — The Guardian\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Matthew Sweet, who seems born to write this biography, installs us in an open-topped two-seater, and puts his foot down on the gas like a boy racer, hurtling his readers through a no-man's-land of shell shock and party going.\" — The Tablet\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Sweet's prose is peppered with dry wit and sharpened by an eye for telling detail.\" — The Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This book is superb. A psychologically acute rendering of a publishing phenomenon.\" — Jenny Colgan\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e","brand":"Hodder \u0026 Stoughton","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67644440805664,"sku":"9781399715799","price":21.25,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0753\/2812\/7264\/files\/9781399715799_3094912.jpg?v=1791807481","url":"https:\/\/bookcorner.com\/products\/the-great-dictator-matthew-sweet-9781399715799","provider":"The Book Corner","version":"1.0","type":"link"}