Barbara Cartland: Give Pink a Chance

The Great Dictator by Matthew Sweetpublished 2026 Writing about the Royals for the I newspaper recently, I picked up Matthew Sweet’s new biography of Barbara Cartland, marvellously titled The Great Dictator. I am a big fan of Matthew Sweet’s writing (click on the tag to find more from him), and although I was initially looking for the Dame’s connections with the royals - she was Princess Diana’s stepgrandmother, and a good friend of Lord Mountbatten - the book was hugely enjoyable all the way through. She was an extraordinary character, who lived an extraordinary life, and the book does her full justice. She is famous for her romance novels, her huge rate of production, her fondness for pink, her health claims, her psychic interests, her opinions on everything and willingness to be endlessly interviewed by people who weren’t taking her seriously. She dictated her books to a secretary, while lying on a chaise longue, swathed in pink. She nicely spanned the 20th century – 1901-2000, and…