Editing Eleanor Alice Burford (section)

===Early work===
During the 1930s, Hibbert wrote nine long novels (each about 150,000 words in length), all of them serious psychological studies of contemporary life.<ref name="hibbert_smh_1974-02-24">{{cite news | title= 'Little old lady' whose books sell millions | url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1301&dat=19740224&id=aPhjAAAAIBAJ&pg=890,8983648 |first= L. V. |last=Kepert |newspaper= The Sydney Morning Herald | date= 24 February 1974 |access-date= 28 August 2014}}</ref> However, none of these was accepted for publication. At the same time, she wrote short stories for newspapers including the ''[[Daily Mail]]'' and ''[[The Evening News (London newspaper)|Evening News]]''. Some also appeared in ''[[The Star (1888)|The Star]]'', ''[[Woman's Realm]]'' and ''[[Ladies' Home Journal]]''. The turning point came when the fiction editor of the ''Daily Mail'' told her, "You're barking up the wrong tree: you must write something which is saleable, and the easiest way is to write romantic fiction."

Hibbert read 50 romance novels as research and then published her first fiction book, ''Daughter of Anna'', in 1941.<ref name="hibbert_hah_2012-11-30">{{cite web | title= The Many Facets of Victoria Holt | url= http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2012/11/the-many-facets-of-victoria-holt | author= Janga | publisher= Heroes and Heartbreakers, Macmillan | date= 30 November 2012 | access-date= 26 August 2014 | archive-date= 1 January 2017 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170101231925/http://www.heroesandheartbreakers.com/blogs/2012/11/the-many-facets-of-victoria-holt | url-status= dead }}</ref> It was a period novel set in Australia of the late 18th and 19th centuries. It was a moderate success and Hibbert received £30 as advance for it. The book was published under her maiden name, ''Eleanor Burford'', which was also used for her contemporary novels. Following the success of the book, Hibbert was contracted by [[Barrie & Jenkins|Herbert Jenkins]] publishers to write one book a year. By 1961 Hibbert had published 31 novels under this name, including ten romance novels for [[Mills & Boon]].