Sally Beauman was born in Devon, England, and is a graduate of Cambridge University. She began her career as a critic and writer for New York magazine and continued to write for leading periodicals in the US and the UK after returning to England. In 1970, she became the first recipient of the Catherine Pakenham Award for journalism, and at the age of twenty-four, was appointed editor of Queen magazine. Beauman wrote for the New Yorker, the Sunday Times, and Telegraph Magazine, where she was arts editor.

Her novels, which include the New York Times–bestselling sensation Destiny, have been translated into over twenty languages and are bestsellers worldwide. In addition to her works of fiction, Beauman published two nonfiction books based on the history and work of the Royal Shakespeare Company: The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Centenary Production of Henry V (edited by Beauman, with a foreword by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, 1976), and The Royal Shakespeare Company: A History of Ten Decades (1982).

Beauman passed away in 2016 at the age of seventy-one.