The Royal family led the way in tributes to one of the UK’s best-loved novelists, Dame Jilly Cooper who has died at the age of 88.
Queen Camilla released the following statement: “I was so saddened to learn of Dame Jilly’s death last night.
“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.
“In person she was a wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so many – and it was a particular pleasure to see her just a few weeks ago at my Queen’s Reading Room Festival where she was, as ever, a star of the show.
“I join my husband the King in sending our thoughts and sympathies to all her family. And may her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs.”
Cooper was the author of bestselling novels such as The Rutshire Chronicles, which included Riders, Rivals, and her most recent Tackle!, which was released in 2023.
Bill Scott-Kerr, her publisher, said: “Working with Jilly Cooper over the past 30 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.”
He said that Riders 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.
“Transworld has been blessed to be her publishers for 50 years since we published Emily in 1975 – her work spanned 18 novels and short fiction as well as over 20 books of non-fiction which were not only a window into her own life, but also acute observations on the essence of a certain type of Englishness. The Common Years, in particular, was a particular reader favourite.
“Over the course of her writing life, she has been a friend and inspiration to generations of readers, editors, publicists, marketeers and salesmen and women. She has been a foundation stone of Transworld’s business, always invested in our success, with a sharp eye on how we did things and always there to celebrate every success. 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.”
