In 1905 a young kitchen maid leaves Fairley Hall. Emma Harte is sixteen, single and pregnant. By 1968 she is one of the richest women in the world, ruler of a business empire stretching from Yorkshire to the glittering cities of America and the rugged vastness of Australia. But what is the price she has paid? A Woman of Substance is as impossible to put down as it is to forget. This multi-million copy bestseller is truly a novel of our times.

Orphaned and alone, thirteen-year-old Blackie O'Neill must leave North Kerry to find work and put food in his mouth. His only chance of survival lies with his mother's brother, far away in Leeds. There, amid the noise and bustle, the mills and manufactories of the clothing industry that have made Leeds one of England's most prosperous cities, Blackie's spark of ambition becomes a flame. Working in his uncle's business, he nurtures a dream of throwing...