A Woman of Substance
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| Author | Barbara Taylor Bradford |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Family saga, Romance |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Released | 1979 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback)) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0739412508 |
A Woman of Substance is a novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford, and was published in 1979.
This novel is the first of a saga about the fortunes of a retail empire and the machinations of the business elite across three generations. It is structured in four parts.
[edit] Plot summary
The first part starts with an octogenarian Emma, rich and powerful beyond her dreams. She is now enjoying and contemplating the empire she has created with her own hands. She is also training her favourite grandchild, Paula McGill Amory, to be her successor in the head of Harte Enterprises.
The second part presents the main character, Emma Harte, born April 30th 1889, who lived in the Yorkshire rural area.
Her parents were Jack Harte and his wife Elizabeth, who died at the very beginning of this part, allegedly of tuberculosis.
Emma was then left to take care of her father, along with her siblings, Winston who was older than her, and young Frank.
By then, she was also working as a maid at the Fairley Hall, the manor house where Adam Fairley, his wife Adele and their children Gerald and Edwin lived. Olivia Wainright, Adele's widowed sister who would later be Adam's second wife, used to spend some time with them.
The wicked butler Murgatroyd, the housekeeper, and another maid also worked and lived there.
One day in her way to work, she met who would be her best friend for more than half a decade, an Irishman named Shane Patrick Desmond O'Neill, also known as Blackie. O'Neill was a building worker hired by the "Squire" (Mr Fairley) to do some repairs in Fairley Hall. After Adele Fairley dies in an unclear situation, it seems her death was caused by her alcoholism and her psychological problems, Emma and Edwin become good friends. They eventually end up making love in a cave up in the moors and she gets pregnant. He despises her since he's afraid of being disinherited, disowned by his father and his whole family. Then, she goes to Leeds to have her baby. Before she leaves, she makes up a character for her: the wife of a Royal Navy officer, young, humble, but brilliant. Mind that in 1905 it was still a taboo having children out of wedlock. There she meets the Kallinskis, a jewish family working in the textile industry. Emma meets Abraham Kallinski in an anti-semitic incident. As she defends him, he takes her home and introduces her to his family. David, Abraham's eldest son, falls for Emma almost immediately. In return to the favour Emma did to Abraham, they give her a job and treat her as family while she's away from home. Shortly after she leaves for Leeds her father dies of burn injuries caused while trying to save Edwin to die in a fire in the Fairleys' factory. Some time later, Blackie reunites with Emma in Leeds and is he who, in the late stages of her pregnancy takes her to the house of a beautiful, kind and loving woman named Laura.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
In 1983, the book was adapted as a television miniseries starring Malaysian-born British actress Jenny Seagrove as Emma Harte. The debut UK screening of this series in January 1985 gave Channel 4 its highest ever audience figures, with 13.8 million viewers.
