In her lifetime she published 723 novels, and also wrote health books, plays, music and drama, and was a well-known philanthropist.
After a year as a gossip columnist for the Daily Express, Cartland published her first novel, Jigsaw, in 1923. This risque society thriller was a best-seller. In 1976 she wrote 23 novels, gaining her the Guinness World Record for most novels written in a year. The 1970s and 1980s were a very prolific era for her as well, more than 50 years into her writing career. By the mid-1990s she had sold over a billion books.
Barbara Cartland died in her sleep on May 21, 2000, just before her 90th birthday. She left behind a series of 160 unpublished novels.