Peter Sinclair: Dame Barbara Cartland

By PETER SINCLAIR

In the history of the novel, there is a handful of writers whose work is deemed so bad it's almost good.

Lord Bulwer-Lytton ("it was a dark and stormy night ..."), Ouida, Hall Caine and Elinor Glyn spring to mind.

This small company of Great Trash Icons has now been enlarged by the death at 98 of Dame Barbara Cartland, pink-clad purveyor of dreams and patron saint of the love-struck.

Like the late Princess Diana - of whom, in a relationship as tortuous as one of her plots, she was step-grandmother - at her death she too had earned the title "Queen of Hearts."

The word itself was central to her oeuvre: A Duel of Hearts, Call of the Heart, The Captive Heart, A Hazard of Hearts, The Heart Triumphant ... the list goes on. And on.

Her entry in Who's Who is by far the longest, for she insisted it list every one of her titles - although there's some dispute as to their exact number. It was well over 700 and the Guinness Book of Records names her most prolific writer of all time.

She produced a novel every two weeks, dictated from a pink chaise longue. As lesser romantic novelist Barbara Bretton notes with envy: "When I lie down on a chaise, I fall asleep; Dame Barbara got up with two more chapters under her belt."

Her life, her appearance, her views, were as extraordinary as the success of her books.

With her frequent facelifts, huge black false eyelashes, spun-sugar hair, pink ballgowns and Pekingese, she came to resemble an elderly Barbie doll. From a distance, the effect was one of startling youth; at closer range, it was ... well, startling.

She drove, or was driven in, a white Mercedes with a stereo-system which seldom played: "I talk, you see, you can't have the music and me ...

For her heroines, with names like Wivinia (Love and the Loathsome Leopard, 1977), ecstasy was never associated with the bedroom, for Dame Barbara was preoccupied with virginity: "The great majority of people in England and America are modest, decent and pure-minded ... the amount of virgins in the world today is stupendous."

For this and other inspirational Cartland quotes, visit www.cybernation.com. Her books, and videos of her movies like The Lady and the Highwayman, with Hugh Grant and Michael York, are still widely available at major online booksellers.

She even recorded an album of love songs, Especially For You, with the Royal Philharmonic and Mike Sammes Singers. Each song starts with a monologue from Dame Barbara, her singing voice "a unique blend of whispering and ... coo."

The Sleuth would pay good money to hear this, but has been unable to track it down, even on Napster.

A beacon for the lovelorn has been extinguished. She will be remembered by millions of mainly female fans for passages like: "He kissed her until she was no longer herself but his, and it was so wonderful that it was impossible to think of anything except that she loved him, and he filled her whole world ... " (Love on the Wind, 1983).

In the words of her son, Ian McCorquodale: "She brought gaiety to a nation."

And on occasion, a certain gentle hilarity, too.

Links:

Lord Bulwer-Lytton

Ouida

Hall Caine

Elinor Glyn

Dame Barbara Cartland

Guinness Book of Records

Barbara Bretton

Barbara Cartland's life

Barbara Cartland's appearance

Barbara Cartland's views

Cybernation


petersinclair@email.com