Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland, was an English author, one of the most prolific and commercially successful of the twentieth century. Her 723 novels were translated into 36 different languages, and she continues to be referenced in the Guinness World Records for the most novels published in a single year. As Barbara Cartland she is known for her numerous romantic novels, but she also wrote under her married name of Barbara McCorquodale. She wrote more than 700 books, which reportedly sold more than 750 million copies. Other sources estimate her book sales at more than 1 billion copies.