Photo Credit: Getty Images
English author Dame Jilly Cooper, best known for her best-selling Rutshire Chronicles novels including Riders and Rivals, has died at the age of 88 following a fall, her family confirmed. Her children, Felix and Emily, said her death came as a "complete shock," describing her as "the shining light in all of our lives" whose "love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds."
Cooper's agent, Felicity Blunt, said the author had "defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago." She added, "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."
Queen Camilla led tributes, calling Cooper a "legend" and "a wonderfully witty and compassionate friend." She added, "Very few writers get to be a legend in their own lifetime, but Jilly was one, creating a whole new genre of literature and making it her own through a career that spanned over five decades. May her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs."
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also praised Cooper's contribution to British culture, saying her books offered "escapism," while Downing Street described her as "a literary force whose wit, warmth and wisdom shaped British culture for over half a century."
Publisher Bill Scott-Kerr remembered her as "a true trailblazer," adding, "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 changed the course of popular fiction forever."
Born in Essex in 1937, Cooper began her career as a cub reporter at the Middlesex Independent in 1956 before moving into magazine columns and book publishing. Her first book, How to Stay Married, appeared in 1969, and she went on to write more than forty titles, selling over 11 million copies in the UK alone.
Her last novel, Tackle (2023), returned to the fictional county of Rutshire and its infamous hero Rupert Campbell-Black. Cooper, who was made a Dame in 2024 for her services to literature and charity, will be remembered as one of Britain's most entertaining and enduring storytellers.
