Dame Jilly Cooper dies aged 88 after fall

Dame Jilly Cooper, the author, has died at the age of 88 following a fall.

The romance novelist was famous for her raunchy portrayals of the British upper classes, including bestsellers Rivals and Riders.

Dame Jilly Cooper last month at The Queen’s Reading Room Festival, held at Chatsworth in Derbyshire, England.Credit: AP

Rivals has since been turned into a popular TV adaptation by Disney+, starring Aidan Turner and David Tennant, which is filming a second season.

In a statement, her family said: “Mum was the shining light in all of our lives. Her love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds. Her unexpected death has come as a complete shock.

Cooper was first published more than 50 years ago. Credit:

“We are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and can’t begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us.”

Cooper was awarded a damehood for services to literature by King Charles last year. She described receiving the honour as “orgasmic”.

Her Curtis Brown agent, Felicity Blunt, said it had been “the privilege” of her career to work with Cooper, adding that the author had “defined culture, writing and conversation,” particularly with her Rutshire Chronicles series, published in the 1980s.

Cooper was first published more than 50 years ago. Blunt paid tribute to her “wicked humour” and “intricate and gutsy” novel plots.

“You wouldn’t expect books categorised as bonk-busters to have so emphatically stood the test of time but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all things – class, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility,” she said.

Her agent added: “She regularly mined her own life for inspiration and there was something Austen-esque about her dissections of society, its many prejudices and norms. She wrote, she said, simply ‘to add to the sum of human happiness’. In this regard, as a writer, she was and remains unbeatable.”

“I have lost a friend, an ally, a confidante and a mentor. But I know she will live for ever in the words she put on the page and on the screen.”

Cooper was born in Essex and moved to the Cotswolds in 1982. Many of her novels are set there and focus on the scandal and adultery in upper-class society.

She was appointed OBE in 2004 and received a CBE in 2018 for services to literature and charity.

The author and former journalist is a long-standing friend of Queen Camilla, and most recently appeared at Her Majesty’s Queen’s Reading Room festival on September 20 for a talk about her life and work.

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