After a year as a gossip columnist for the
Daily Express, Cartland published her first novel,
Jigsaw (1923), a risqué society thriller that became a bestseller. She also began writing and producing somewhat racy plays, one of which,
Blood Money (1926), was banned by the
Lord Chamberlain's Office. In the 1920s and 1930s, Cartland was a prominent young hostess in London society, noted for her beauty, energetic charm and daring parties. Her fashion sense also had a part, and she was one of the first clients of designer
Norman Hartnell; she remained a client until he died in 1979. He made her presentation and wedding dresses; the latter was made to her own design against Hartnell's wishes, and she admitted it was a failure. In 1950, Cartland was accused of plagiarism by author
Georgette Heyer, after a reader drew attention to the apparent borrowing of Heyer's character names, character traits, dialogue and plot points in Cartland's early historical romances. In particular,
A Hazard of Hearts (1949) replicated characters (including names) from Heyer's ''
Friday's Child (1944) and The Knave of Hearts
(1950): Heyer alleged that "the conception ... , the principal characters, and many of the incidents, derive directly from an early book of my own, entitled These Old Shades'', first published in 1926. ... For minor situations and other characters she has drawn upon four of my other novels." Heyer completed a detailed analysis of the alleged plagiarisms for her solicitors, but the case never came to court. As well as writing novels, Cartland wrote a guide to married life in the 1950s, which was banned in Ireland. Despite their tame story lines, Cartland's later novels were highly successful. By 1983, she rated the longest entry in ''
Who's Who (though most of that article was a list of her books), and she was named the top-selling author in the world by the Guinness Book of Records. Additionally, in 1976, Cartland wrote 23 novels, earning her the Guinness World Record
for the most novels written in a single year. The 1970s and 1980s were her most prolific period; she also regularly appeared on television in that era. She had firm opinions on the romance genre, stating that it was both "physical and spiritual" and stressed its emphasis on beauty, rather than sexuality. One example of a novel that Cartland did not believe was part of the canon was Harriet'' by
Jilly Cooper. In 2000, her publishers estimated that since her writing career began in 1923, Cartland had produced a total of 723 titles. In the mid-1990s, by which time she had sold over a billion books,
Vogue called Cartland "the true Queen of Romance". ==Contribution to aviation==