An English author who wrote under multiple pen names, she had sold more than 100 million copies of her popular novels by the time of her death. Her works include the Tudor Saga, the Stuart Saga, and The Catherine De Medici Trilogy, as well as numerous non-serial books.
She dropped out of school to work as a jeweler's apprentice. She published her first two novels, Daughter of Anna and Passionate Witness, in 1941.
Her many pen names include Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt, Philippa Carr, and Eleanor Burford.
She married leather-seller, George Percival Hibbert, when she was in her twenties and he was in his forties. She died in 1993 while on a cruise ship en route from Greece to Egypt.
She admired Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, and her early novels were greatly influenced by his work.
