{"product_id":"the-great-dictator-a-life-of-barbara-cartland","title":"The Great Dictator : A Life of Barbara Cartland","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e **Pre Order - Published 10th September 2026**\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe 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. This 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. After 49 proposals, she chose the wrong one.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhat followed was a life stranger than any of her novels. From 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\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\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\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Matthew Sweet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55832442438017,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0429\/8116\/3166\/files\/9781399715799.jpg?v=1782226416","url":"https:\/\/bookshop.wigtownbookfestival.com\/products\/the-great-dictator-a-life-of-barbara-cartland","provider":"Wigtown Festival Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}