Jean Plaidy (1906-1993)

Jean Plaidy was the most prolific pseudonym of

Eleanor Hibbert, who also wrote under seven other names, including

Philippa Carr and Victoria

Holt. She sold many millions of books under several of them.

She began writing romantic novels in 1941 under her maiden name Eleanor Burford, and historical ones as Jean Plaidy soon afterwards, where she combined her wonderful imagination with historical facts. The factually accurate books were especially popular with schools and libraries.

When Eleanor died in 1993 she left a legacy of over 200 books, around 90 of which were written as Jean Plaidy. She had by this time sold 75 million books, translated into 20 languages.

In the last decade of the 20th century, historical fiction fell out of fashion and Jean Plaidy titles went out of print. Rachel Kahan at Crown Publishing has now bought the rights and is republishing them .

The first printing sold out in three months and they now plan to republish the whole back catalogue.