Barbara Taylor Bradford, the bestselling author of novels including A Woman of Substance, has died aged 91, her publisher has confirmed.

The novelist died peacefully at her home on Sunday after a short illness, “surrounded by loved ones to the very end”.

Described as “the grande dame of blockbusters”, Taylor Bradford published her 40th novel in 2023, the third in her Victorian family saga House of Falconer series. Cumulative sales of her books across her lifetime reached more than 91m copies, and were published in more than 40 languages and in 90 countries.

Lynne Drew, Barbara’s long-term publisher and editor at HarperCollins, said working with the writer “was a huge privilege but also a huge amount of fun. Perennially curious, interested in everyone and extraordinarily driven, she loved writing, and the conversations we had about her characters were unfailingly the best hours of my week.

“She was an inspiration for millions of readers and countless writers. I’m so proud to have been her publisher for over 20 years – working with her has been one of the great thrills of my career, and I and everyone at HarperCollins will miss her greatly.”

Born in Leeds in May 1933, Taylor Bradford attended the same nursery school as Alan Bennett. Her parents had a son who died of meningitis before she was born, which led to her mother putting “all her frustrated love into me”, Taylor Bradford told the Guardian in 2013. Her mother gave her a cultural education, she said, taking her to the cinema every week and to the Russian ballet whenever it came to Leeds. The writer fictionalised her parents’ marriage in her 1986 novel An Act of Will.

Taylor Bradford began her career as a typist for the Yorkshire Evening Post, and was later promoted to reporter. She went on to become the paper’s first women’s editor, before moving to London at the age of 20, where she worked for Woman’s Own and the London Evening News. An interior design column she wrote was syndicated to 183 newspapers.

She met her husband, the American film producer Robert Bradford, known as Bob, when she was 28, at a cocktail party, and they were married on Christmas Eve 1963, after which she moved to the US to be with him. It was at that point that she decided to try writing fiction, starting, and abandoning, four suspense novels. Then, in her late 30s, she “interviewed herself”, she told the Observer in 2006. “I thought: what if I get to 55, and I’ve never written a novel? I’m going to hate myself. I’m going to be one of those bitter, unfulfilled writers.”

After that, she started writing the sagas she would become known for; her debut novel, A Woman of Substance, was published in 1979 and has since sold more than 30m copies globally. Six sequels in the Emma Harte saga followed, and a long-awaited prequel, A Man of Honour, was published in 2021. Ten of the author’s books were adapted for screen by her husband, starring actors including Liam Neeson, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Elizabeth Hurley.

The actor Jenny Seagrove, who starred as Emma Harte in the TV adaptation of A Woman of Substance, said when she met Taylor Bradford in 1984 she was very nervous. “The door opens and all I can say is that a powerhouse of glamour and warmth heads towards me, grabs me, hugs me, and says … ‘You are my Emma Harte’. And that was the start of a long friendship with the force of nature that I am proud to call my friend.”

“We saw each other whenever she and her beloved Bob were in London,” Seagrove added. “We shared dog stories and talked about everything under the sun. She never changed. Success never diluted her warmth and humour or her ability to relate to everyone she met, whether a cleaner or a princess. She never, ever forgot that she was just a girl from Yorkshire that worked hard and made good.”

Taylor Bradford and her husband did not have children, which she said was never a great source of sadness to her. Bob died following a stroke in 2019, which the author described as being “devastating”.

The pair were together for 58 years and married for 56. “His last words were: ‘I love you.’ I’m so glad I told him: ‘I love you too, darling.’ A week later he was gone,” she said in 2021.

Many of Taylor Bradford’s novels follow young women from humble backgrounds who succeed through years of hard work. The author was often quoted as having said: “I write about mostly ordinary women who go on to achieve the extraordinary.”

In a foreword to the 40th anniversary edition of A Woman of Substance, the television presenter and author Fern Britton wrote that in “force of nature” protagonist Emma Harte, Taylor Bradford had “created a heroine who has inspired women for the past four decades – inspired them to be courageous, break rules and follow their dreams”.

When asked how she would like to be remembered in a 2014 interview, Taylor Bradford responded: “If at all, as a compassionate woman.”