Barbara Cartland (9 July 1901 - 21 May 2000) was the world’s most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and translated into 36 different languages. She wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays, and books of advice on life, love, vitamins, and cookery. She wrote her first book Jigsaw at 21, it became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation. Between the ages of 77 and 97, she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world. She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven Less