Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland, DBE, CStJ , was an English author, one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century. As Barbara Cartland she is known for her numerous fictional romantic novels, but she also wrote under her married name Barbara McCorquodale. She also became one of London's most prominent society figures and one of Britain's most popular media personalities, appearing often at public events and on television, dressed in her trademark pink and discoursing on love, health, and social and political issues. Born Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland at 31 Augustus Road,... Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. She was the only daughter and eldest child of a British army officer, Major Bertram Cartland , and his wife, Mary Hamilton Scobell, known as "Polly" . Though she was born into an enviable degree of middle-class comfort, the family's security was severely shaken after the suicide of her paternal grandfather, James Cartland, a financier, who shot himself in the wake of bankruptcy. This was followed soon after by her father's death on a Flanders battlefield in World War I.
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| Birthdate: | July 9, 1901 |
| Birthplace: | Edgbaston |
| Date of death: | May 21, 2000 |
| Also known as: | Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland, Barbara McCorquodale |