She worked to a strict schedule, producing 6,000 to 7,000 words in an afternoon, and could finish a book in seven afternoons.Reviewers generally ignored her work and she did not pretend to be a great writer. But she was immensely popular.Against the increasing pressures of the sexual revolution, Cartland carried the banner of old-fashioned romance with unswerving dedication.Sales of her 723 books exceeded one billion worldwide in 36 languages.The popularity of her virginal heroines and commanding heroes seemed to grow as society grappled with infidelity, divorce, abortion, drugs and AIDS."Personally I want to be loved, adored, worshipped, cosseted and protected. Judging by the Romantic boom, this is what women all over the world want too," she said in 1977, pointing out that she was a bestseller in Europe, North America, Turkey, Singapore, India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka."The permissive society has been an awful, crashing flop," she once said. "There's no reason for all that pornography, which is quite disgusting."But she insisted she was no prude, and was fond of France "because it is the only country where you can make love in the afternoon without someone hammering on the door".Her crusade in the name of virginity brought her ridicule as well as admiration, but even her critics acknowledged her as a force to be reckoned with.It was never clear whether she was strictly serious about her rather rococo image because, as she herself said, "Nobody sends up Barbara Cartland better than I do myself."Her remarks to the press, however slight, were attention-getters."I always use boot polish on my eyelashes, because I am a very emotional person and it doesn't run when I cry," she once told Martyn Harris of the Sunday Telegraph.Born July 9, 1901, she lost her father early, a casualty of World War I. Her mother moved the family to London and opened a dress shop in Kensington to support them.Young Barbara was heavily influenced by the leading romantic novelists of the time: Elinor Glyn and Ethel M Dell.

She also learned that "the things that nice girls couldn't do seemed endless".As a young woman she began making money by contributing items to a newspaper gossip column at 5 shillings a paragraph. By the time she was 22 she was writing articles about the social life of the bright young things of London, their parties and short skirts.She said publishing magnate Lord Beaverbrook tried but failed to acquire her as a mistress, but befriended her and helped her career, introducing her to famous people.Her first novel, "Jigsaw", appeared in 1925.In 1927 Cartland married Alexander McCorquodale, a wealthy Scot Their daughter Raine was born in 1928. They divorced in 1933.She continued writing novels and working for newspapers and in 1936 married Hugh McCorquodale, a cousin of her ex-husband. They had two sons, Ian and Glen.Raine was married in 1948 to Gerald Legge, who later became Viscount Lewisham. They divorced and Raine married the 8th Earl Spencer, whose daughter was Princess Diana.Hugh McCorquodale died in 1963.At about the age of 50 Cartland began to develop her inimitable style. She was always glamorously and femininely dressed, wore jewels, white fox furs and rode in a white Rolls-Royce.She said her trademark color pink "helps our brain ... helps you to be clever".She took up the cause of homeless gypsies, promoted wages for mothers and healthy eating habits and took dozens of vitamin pills a day.In 1991 she was made a Dame of the British Empire.

She said she was sure the honor was not for her contributions to literature but for her efforts of behalf of charities and the gypsies.Asked where her ideas for so many books came from, she said: "Prayer I say a prayer I really do. I say, 'Please God, get me a plot.' It's absolutely extraordinary: then a plot comes."She had no interest in retiring."I think old people are so much better when they have something to do. People retire at 65, which is wicked, go home to their boring wives and die at once. The whole thing is you must keep going."Her son Ian McCorquodale said in 1985: "She's a one-off; there is nobody else remotely like her in the world.Asked if she was afraid of death, Miss Cartland said in 1990: "Not a bit. It will either be better than this life or nothing at all, in which case there is no point in being frightened."She is survived by two sons and a daughter.