{"product_id":"the-great-dictator-a-life-of-barbara-cartland","title":"The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePenniless virgins. Reckless dukes. Flappers. Airmen. Suffragettes. Barbara Cartland made them fall in love. She 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.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter 49 proposals, she chose the wrong one. What followed was a life stranger than any of her novels.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom 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\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\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\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFormat: Trade Paperback \u003cbr\u003eImprint: Hodder \u0026amp; Stoughton\u003cbr\u003ePublished: September 2026 \u003cbr\u003eISBN: 9781399715805\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Matthew Sweet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57489249403046,"sku":"9781399715805","price":39.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0670\/1465\/6166\/files\/THE_GREAT_DICTATOR_BY_MATTHEW_SWEET.jpg?v=1790038185","url":"https:\/\/enamouredbooks.co.nz\/products\/the-great-dictator-a-life-of-barbara-cartland","provider":"Enamoured Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}