A Woman of Substance is a novel by Barbara Taylor Bradford, published in 1979.

The novel is the first of a

seven-book saga about the fortunes of a retail empire and the machinations of the business elite across three
generations. The series, featuring Emma Harte and her family also includes Hold The Dream, To Be The
Best, Emma's Secret, Unexpected Blessings, Just Rewards and Breaking the Rules. A Woman of Substance was
adapted as an eponymous television miniseries as were the sequels Hold The Dream and To Be The Best.

Plot summary[edit]
The book starts with an elderly Emma flying to New York with her personal assistant and favourite grandchild,
Paula. Emma contemplates the empire she has created. She has trained Paula to be her successor, both as the
head of Harte Stores and as representative of her mother, Daisy Amory, at Sitex.
On their arrival in New York, Emma's secretary, Gaye, tells her she heard Emma's sons discussing a plan to force
her to retire and break up her empire so the pieces can be sold. Devastated initially, Emma isn't surprised but
changes her will, choosing to leave her business interests to her grandchildren instead.
The story then goes back to when Emma was a teenage servant at Fairley Hall, in rural Yorkshire. Her father,
Jack, and two brothers, Winston and Frank, also work for the Fairley family. Jack and Frank work at the mill,
and Winston works at the brickyard. After the death of his mother, Winston joins the navy, as he had wanted
to since he was a child. As parlour maid, Emma sees a lot of the Fairley family and becomes friends with the
younger son, Edwin. They bond over the deaths of their mothers. Emma also meets Blackie O'Neill, a wandering
Irish navvy who has been hired to do some work at Fairley Hall, and they become fast friends. One day, Emma
and Edwin realise they feel more for each other than friendship. Their friendship becomes intimate, and Emma
gets pregnant. Edwin, horrified at this news, does not offer to marry her, so she runs away to Leeds. Wanting
to protect herself and her child from gossip, Emma tells her landlady and new friends she is married to Winston,
a sailor currently away at sea.
While looking for work, she meets Abraham Kallinski and rescues him from an anti-semitic attack by local
youths. After she gets rid of them, she sees Abraham is unwell and walks him home. He introduces her to his
wife, Janessa, and sons, David and Victor. Janessa, out of gratitude, invites Emma to stay for dinner. When
Emma tells them she is looking for work, Abraham immediately offers her a job at his clothing workshop. He
and David are pleased with Emma's work, and she becomes good friends with them.
As Emma's baby's birth approaches, Blackie arranges for her to meet his friend Laura Spencer in the village
of Armley. Laura needs someone to share household expenses, and Emma needs someone to look after her,
so the match seems ideal. The women become good friends, Emma moves in, and Laura gets her a job at
Thompson's Mill. In March, Emma has a daughter and names her Edwina. As Emma must work to support
herself and her child, Emma's cousin, Freda, takes Edwina. After a year of working two jobs, Emma makes
enough money to rent a shop in Armley. This shop is a success, and Emma's business expands to a second shop,
then a third. Not expecting to see the Fairleys, she is horrified when Edwin's brutish brother Gerald visits; he
had found her after seeing she worked at Thompson's Mill, now owned by his father. He tells her Edwin will
soon be engaged and demands she tell him where the child is. Emma refuses to admit there is a child, and after
a violent confrontation, realizes she needs someone to protect her. Worried Gerald will return, she marries her
landlord, Joe Lowther. (They had become friends when he taught her how to do her own accounts.) Soon after
their marriage, he and Emma have a son, Christopher, nicknamed Kit.
Emma's business continues to expand, with Emma going into business with the Kallinskis. Unfortunately, her
private life doesn't run as smoothly. Joe is killed in the Battle of the Somme and Laura, now married to Blackie,
dies giving birth to a son, Bryan. Emma raises Bryan until Blackie returns from the war.
In early 1918, Emma meets Paul McGill. They fall in love, and while their time together is short, it is a very
intense affair. Paul is in the Australian army and returns to France after recovering from a leg injury. After the
war, he goes home and, despite promising to write, never does. Emma, hurt and disappointed, especially when
she discovers he and his wife have a son, turns to an acquaintance for consolation and marries again. She and
her new husband have twins, Robin and Elizabeth, but the marriage is unhappy and ends when Paul returns.
(Emma' husband, Arthur Ainsley, may be homosexual and certainly has a drinking problem.) Paul has kept in
touch with Emma's brother Frank, who informs him that Emma's marriage is unhappy. At Paul's request, Frank
arranges a meeting between Emma and Paul. Emma is initially angry but calms down when Paul explains why
he never wrote to her. They start dating again, and she divorces her husband when she finds out she is pregnant
with Paul's child. Emma has a daughter, whom they name Daisy after Paul's mother.
In February 1939, seeing war on the horizon, Paul goes to Australia to get his affairs in order, as he anticipates
that once war starts travel will be difficult if not impossible. While there, he is seriously injured in a car crash
and almost dies. He survives but is disfigured, and is told he will be dead within a year. He redraws his will,
leaving almost everything to Emma and Daisy, and commits suicide. Emma is devastated but eventually
recovers enough to look after her family and business empires.
Emma's life goes on. Her children marry and have children of their own: Edwina marries Lord Jeremy Standish
and has a son Anthony; Kit has a daughter Sarah; Robin has a son Jonathan; Elizabeth marries repeatedly,
resulting in son Alexander, daughter Emily, and twins Amanda and Francesca; Daisy marries David Amory and
has two children, Philip and Paula.
Back in 1968, Emma invites her family to her house in Yorkshire for the weekend. They come, curious to see
how she is after having recovered from pneumonia. She tells them she has discovered their treachery and
outmaneuvered them by changing her will. Her older children are furious, but each accepts a one million pound
trust that Emma offers as a bribe to not cause trouble. Her grandchildren are pleased, and all promise to run
their section well. Emma also gives her blessing to Paula's becoming involved with Jim Fairley. He is Edwin's
grandson, and Emma tells him Edwina is his aunt, but he had guessed, seeing her resemblance to his great-
grandmother, Adele. Jim also has a surprise for Emma; he gives her a stone she and Edwin found and reveal
the woman painted on it was Emma's mother, Elizabeth. Jim tells Emma about the history of brief but tragic
relationships between Fairley men and Harte women, and relates that on his deathbed, Edwin asked Jim to
beg Emma to allow Paula and Jim the happiness they were denied. He also asked for Emma's forgiveness, as
Jim revealed Edwin had never recovered from the guilt he suffered for abandoning her and their child. Emma
was happy to forgive Edwin and give her blessing to Jim and Paula's marriage.

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations[edit]

In 1984, the book was adapted as an eponymous television miniseries starring Jenny Seagrove as the young
Emma Harte; Deborah Kerr plays the older 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. The sequels Hold The Dream and To
Be The Best were made in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Hold The Dream again features Deborah Kerr as Emma
Harte but now stars Jenny Seagrove as her granddaughter, Paula (replacing Miranda Richardson, who had
played her in the first mini-series). To Be The Best stars Lindsay Wagner as Paula, running the Harte empire ten
years after Emma's death. All three programmes are available on DVD.[citation needed]