Barbara Taylor Bradford, a British journalist who became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the saga “A Woman of Substance” and wrote more than a dozen other novels that sold tens of millions of copies,

Barbara Taylor Bradford, a British journalist who became a publishing sensation in her 40s with the saga "A Woman of Substance" and wrote more than a dozen other novels that sold tens of millions of copies,

Her own rags-to-riches story mirrored those of many of her resilient heroines, and her dozens of novels helped her amass a fortune of $300 million.