Betty Boothroyd is used to being at the centre of things. For eight years, she presided over the House of Commons as its first woman Speaker. But the past few days have surprised even her.
Only two months after leaving her post, publishers have offered more than half a million pounds for her memoirs in a bidding war that already puts her on a footing with some of the most successful political diarists of recent times - Alan Clark, Margaret Thatcher, Chris Patten and Edward Heath.
The figure involved reached £650,000 as this weekend approached and a deal is expected next week.
Boothroyd's literary agent Lisanne Radice, of Gregory and Radice, said she had been 'surprised and rather shaken' by the level of interest.
Two publishers are going head-to-head for the final round, but Radice said they are not Bloomsbury and Hodder and Stoughton which had both been interested.
'We have only a synopsis so far,' said Radice yesterday. 'I don't know exactly what these people are hoping for.'
The one-volume account is to cover Boothroyd's long political career as well as her brief spell as a dancer with the Tiller Girls. It will not be finished in time for the general election.
Radice said the memoir promised to buck the recent trend for political biographies to sell badly. 'These things entirely depend on the person,' she said. 'She is an exceptional person and one who will appeal right across the field.
'She is well known in the US and is very forthcoming, much more interesting to the general public than most members of the Cabinet.'
Boothroyd, who has been made a life peer, admitted in a television documentary screened four days ago that she had been proposed to three times, but had decided not to marry. She is rumoured to have led a colourful life, although friends insist she plans her book to be proper in tone.
Publishing political biography is risky, however, and the market has recently been saturated. Some, such as John Major's, do well (selling 15,000 copies in its first three weeks), while others, such as Norman Lamont's, make little impact, (selling only 619 in the same period).
'It is hard to see how this book can possibly make that kind of money for its publisher,' said a leading commissioning editor working in the political market.
'There just isn't the interest out there,' he added. 'And the timing is wrong. She will have been out of office for some time and the election will overshadow all political stories for most of next year.'
In 1995 the journalist Paul Routledge published a biography of Boothroyd, but she refused to co-operate.
The new memoirs will be written with the help of Michael Jones, a journalist friend of Boothroyd's for two decades.
