Following this, Plaidy started working in a jewlery shop in Hatton Garden. This enabled her to study typewriting, languages, and shorthand. When she reached the age of 16, Plaidy stepped out to join a business school. When she was very young, author Plaidy’s health started deteriorating, which forced her to receive private education in her home. Plaidy’s father used to work as a dock laborer, and was responsible for developing the interest of reading in Plaidy. Her parents were Joseph Burford and Alice Louise Burford. Author Plaidy was born as Eleanor Alice Burford on September 01, 1906, in Canning Town, London, England. The famous historical fiction works by her are appreciated and praised by critics and readers alike for their high writing quality, detailed description, and accuracel. Author Plaidy continues to be one of the most borrowed writers among the lending libraries. By the time Plaidy died, she had written well over 200 novels, which sold over a 100 million copies worldwide altogether in as many as 20 foreign languages.

In 1989, author Plaidy was awarded with a Golden Treasure award by the RWA for her significant and important contributions to the genre of romance. And the genre categories that Plaidy used to work on using these pseudonyms include gothic romances, multigenerational family saga, light romances, European royalty’s fictionalized history, murder mysteries, crime fiction, etc. Some of her most popular pen names include Victoria Holt, Eleanor Burford, Anna Percival, Philippa Carr, Elbur Ford, Ellalice Tate, Kathleen Kellow, and Jean Plaidy. Author Plaidy used to publish several books every year in different genres and for each of her genres she used to use a different pseudonym. She was particularly famous for combining facts and imagination for bringing alive history through her books of romance and fiction. Jean Plaidy is the pen name of a prolific English novelist and author named Eleanor Alice Buford Hibbert, who liked to write historical fiction, romantic fiction, and gothic fiction novels.

The Princess of Celle by Jean Plaidy