{"product_id":"the-great-dictator-a-life-of-barbara-cartland-9781399715805","title":"The Great Dictator: A Life of Barbara Cartland","description":"\u003cp\u003eA wickedly funny and perfectly horrifying portrait of the queen of romance, featuring high society, bad behaviour, violet creams and Baby Jane eyelashes.\u003c\/p\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.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter 49 proposals, she chose the wrong one. What followed was a life stranger than any of her novels.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\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, \u003ci\u003eThe Great Dictator\u003c\/i\u003e reveals how a literary legend was made.\u003ch4\u003eDetails\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003cp\u003eISBN13: 9781399715805\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFormat: Paperback \/ softback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNumber of Pages: 496\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdition: \u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication Date: 08 Sep 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublisher: Hodder \u0026amp; Stoughton\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePublication City, Country: United Kingdom\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDimensions (cm): 23.2(H)x15.4(L)x4.6(W)618\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWeight (gm): 618\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch4\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h4\u003eMatthew Sweet is co-writer, with Mark Gatiss, of the 6-part detective series, \u003ci\u003eBookish\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eInventing the Victorians\u003c\/i\u003e (Faber, 2001), \u003ci\u003eShepperton Babylon \u003c\/i\u003e(Faber, 2005), \u003ci\u003eThe West End Front\u003c\/i\u003e (Faber, 2011) and \u003ci\u003eOperation Chaos\u003c\/i\u003e (Picador 2018). His novel, \u003ci\u003eThe New Forest Murders\u003c\/i\u003e was published in 2025. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMatthew presents \u003ci\u003eFree Thinking\u003c\/i\u003e on BBC Radio 4 and \u003ci\u003eSound of Cinema\u003c\/i\u003e on BBC Radio 3. Additional broadcasting includes \u003ci\u003eThe Culture Show \u003c\/i\u003e(BBC2), \u003ci\u003eChecking into History\u003c\/i\u003e (C4), five series of \u003ci\u003eThe Philosophers Arms\u003c\/i\u003e (Radio 4) and \u003ci\u003e1922: The Birth of Now\u003c\/i\u003e, a ten-part history of modernism (Radio 4). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHe has been film critic of the \u003ci\u003eIndependent on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e, photography critic of \u003ci\u003eNewsweek\u003c\/i\u003e and fashion columnist for \u003ci\u003e1843\/The Economist\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn 2017 he and the baker Frances Quinn achieved a chocolate-related Guinness World record that held good until 2022, when it was broken by Ant and Dec. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eMatthew lives with his family in London.\u003ch4\u003eReviews\u003c\/h4\u003e","brand":"Matthew Sweet","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49279513034969,"sku":"9781399715805","price":34.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0502\/9530\/8441\/files\/9781399715805.jpg?v=1789818568","url":"https:\/\/www.arielbooks.com.au\/products\/the-great-dictator-a-life-of-barbara-cartland-9781399715805","provider":"Ariel","version":"1.0","type":"link"}