Famed author Barbara Taylor Bradford made a splash in the literary world before her death at age 91. “With great sadness, we announce the death of Barbara Taylor Bradford OBE. The international bestselling author of A Woman of Substance leaves behind a phenomenal literary legacy,

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,

International bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford died at her home Thursday, her publishing house confirmed.

Starting with 'A Woman of Substance,' published in 1979, Bradford averaged nearly a book a year as one of the world's most popular and wealthiest writers.

The title of Barbara Taylor Bradford's most celebrated, and first, novel A Woman of Substance could well have been used to describe the author herself. The 1979 story of a young woman's journey from rags to riches went from bestseller to super-seller in a year and stayed on the New York Times list for 43 weeks.