Best-selling novelist Dame Jilly Cooper dies at 88
Best-selling novelist Jilly Cooper has died at the age of 88.
The novelist passed away on Sunday morning after a fall, her agent confirmed, News.Az reports, citing foreign media.
Tributes have poured in for the Rivals author, who has sold over 11 million books in the UK alone.
"It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Dame Jilly Cooper, DBE who died on Sunday morning, after a fall, at the age of 88," a statement said.
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.
"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 Cooper's agent added: “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 regularly mined her own life for inspiration and there was something Austenesque about her dissections of society, its many prejudices and norms.
“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.”
Best known for her series the "Rutshire Chronicles", which includes books like "Riders, Rivals, Polo, and Mount", Dame Cooper's novels have been described as romantic and racy.
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