Renowned novelist Jilly Cooper has passed away at the age of 88 after a fall, her family has revealed.
The ‘Queen of the bonkbuster’ writer was famed for her raunchy romance books, selling more than 12 million books in her career.
Her children, Felix and Emily, said her death on Sunday morning has come as a ‘complete shock’.
They said in a statement: ‘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.
‘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.’
Dame Jilly Cooper’s agent Felicity Blunt gave a similarly warm tribute, saying the author was ‘sharply observant and utter fun’.
The Rutshire Chronicles, which featured the showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black, is the author’s most well-known work.
The portrayal of the polo-playing elite’s bedroom activities was a tremendous hit, captivating millions of readers seeking naughty bedtime reading.
Rivals, the first and possibly most famous book in the series, was published in 1985.
It made the BBC list of 100 important English language books in the love, sex and romance selection alongside Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
It was recently adapted for television by Disney+.
In August, Dame Jilly hosted a party for the cast at her Gloucestershire home, demonstrating her continued busy life in her senior years.
Also among the attendees was friend Andrew-Parker Bowles, the ex-husband of Queen Camilla.
The ‘famously naughty’ former Army officer is said to have been the inspiration for Campbell-Black.
The novelist lost her husband, Leo Cooper, to Parkinson’s disease in 2013.
Even when his condition deteriorated, the author, who had known him since she was nine years old, refused to place him in a care facility.
In her latter years, Dame Jilly said that she only kept writing novels to cover her husband’s medical expenses.
Her agent, Ms Blunt, said in reaction to her death: ‘The privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago.
‘Jilly will undoubtedly be best remembered for her chart-topping series The Rutshire Chronicles and its havoc-making and handsome show-jumping hero Rupert Campbell-Black.
‘You wouldn’t expect books categorised as bonkbusters 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.
‘Her plots were both intricate and gutsy, spiked with sharp observations and wicked humour.
She frequently looked to her own life for inspiration, and her critiques of society’s numerous rules and biases had an Austenesque quality.
‘But if you tried to pay her this compliment, or any compliment, she would brush it aside.
‘She wrote, she said, simply “to add to the sum of human happiness”. In this regard, as a writer, she was and remains unbeatable.’
She added: ‘Emotionally intelligent, fantastically generous, sharply observant and utter fun, Jilly Cooper will be deeply missed by all at Curtis Brown and on the set of Rivals.
‘I have lost a friend, an ally, a confidante and a mentor. But I know she will live forever in the words she put on the page and on the screen.’
Born in Hornchurch, Essex, in 1937, Dame Jilly grew up in Yorkshire and attended the private Godolphin School in Salisbury.
Her father was a brigadier, and her family moved to London in the 1950s, where she became a reporter on The Middlesex Independent when she was 20.
She has said she moved to public relations and was sacked from 22 jobs before ending up in book publishing.
Her work has been adapted at various points, including an ITV series of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous with Coronation Street star Stephen Billington and Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, while Marcus Gilbert starred in a Riders series during the 1990s.
She won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award in 2019 and was made a dame for her services to literature and charity in 2024.
In November, Dame Jilly is scheduled to release a new book through Transworld.
How To Survive Christmas is defined as ‘an irreverent and witty guide to surviving the festive season.’
Her publisher, Bill Scott-Kerr, said: ‘Working with Jilly Cooper over the past thirty years has been one of the great privileges and joys of my publishing life.
‘Beyond her genius as a novelist, she was always a personal heroine of mine for so many other reasons. For her kindness and friendship, for her humour and irrepressible enthusiasm, for her curiosity, for her courage, and for her profound love of animals.
‘Jilly may have worn her influence lightly, but she was a true trailblazer.
‘As a journalist, she went where others feared to tread, and as a novelist, she did likewise.
‘With a winning combination of glorious storytelling, wicked social commentary and deft, lacerating characterisation, she dissected the behaviour, bad mostly, of the English upper middle classes with the sharpest of scalpels.
‘It is no exaggeration to say that Riders, her first Rutshire chronicle, changed the course of popular fiction forever.
‘Ribald, rollicking and the very definition of good fun, it, and the 10 Rutshire novels which followed it, were to inspire a generation of women, writers and otherwise, to tell it how it was, whilst giving us a cast of characters who would define a generation and beyond.’
He added: ‘A publishing world without a new Jilly Cooper novel on the horizon is a drabber, less gorgeous place and we shall mourn the loss of a ground-breaking talent and a true friend.’
Dame Jilly’s funeral will be private in line with her wishes, according to her agent.
A public service of thanksgiving will be held in the coming months in Southwark Cathedral to celebrate her life, with a separate announcement made in due course.
This is sad news for all of those who loved her books; she will be deeply missed.
First Jane Goodall, Patricia Routledge and now Jilly Cooper – they will be having a huge party upstairs.
What a life she lived, though – she was a true icon, and people will mourn the fact that there will be no more books to come.
She was saucy and charming and an absolute scream, but she was never rude, and I believe that’s why generations utterly loved her.
She addressed many sensitive subjects, but she also did it in a humorous manner and without sugarcoating the facts.
Her books were tremendous fun, and she also appeared entertaining to be with – the kind of person that you would want to be placed next to at a dinner party.
A further outpouring of sympathy for recently deceased writers, singers, and performers seems to have occurred. It must serve as a memorial to a generation that created truly innovative and high-calibre work, which is unlikely to be seen again.
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