Dame Jilly Cooper: Queen leads tributes after beloved author dies aged 88

She died after a fall on Sunday morning, her family said, describing her passing as “a complete shock.”

The Queen, who called Dame Jilly a “wonderfully witty and compassionate friend,” led the tributes to the author, best known for her Rutshire Chronicles, which charted the lives and passions of the upper-classes.

Camilla said: “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.”

Dame Jilly was born in Essex, but grew up in Ilkley and attended the Moorfield School. She described the family’s home Ilkley Hall as “incredibly grand… a heavenly place to invite school chums and, later, boyfriends,” and that she wrote her first stories under a weeping ash in the garden.

And a talent for writing was in the blood: Dame Jilly’s great-great grandfather founded the Leeds Mercury, which later merged with the Yorkshire Post.

She was married to Leo Cooper, who she met in Yorkshire as a child, for more than half a century.

As well as her novels, Dame Jilly wrote prolific journalism and books on marriage, class and the countryside.

Her children Felix and Emily 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.”

Downing Street said Dame Jilly Cooper’s “wit, warmth and wisdom” had delighted readers.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Dame Jilly Cooper was a literary force whose wit, warmth and wisdom shaped British culture for over half a century and brought joy to millions.”

Dame Jilly’s first novel in the Rutshire series, Riders, was published in 1985.

It made the BBC list of 100 important English language novels in the love, sex and romance selection alongside Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice.

It also introduced her most famous creation: lothario polo player turned Government minister Rupert Campbell-Black.

Heated gossip over the decades has speculated that Dame Jilly based Campbell-Black on the Queen’s ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles.

Her works have enjoyed something of a revival in recent years, with a Disney+ adaptation of Rivals drawing in millions of viewers. Dame Jilly had a cameo in the first series, and served as executive producer.

The second series, which stars David Tennant and Danny Dyer, is currently in production.

Her agent Felicity Blunt said: “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.

“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.”

One of her literary fans also included former prime minister Rishi Sunak who previously spoke about his favourite books by Dame Jilly, adding that her novels offered a form of “escapism”.

Paying tribute to the late writer, the MP for Richmond and Northallerton said: “Sad to hear of the passing of Dame Jilly Cooper, a storyteller whose wit and love of character brought joy to millions.

"My thoughts are with her family and fellow readers.”

Rivals producers Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Alex Lamb said: “We are broken-hearted. Jilly was and always will be one of the world’s greatest storytellers, and it has been the most incredible honour to have been able to work with her to adapt her incredible novels for television.

“Crawling around on her sitting room floor with storylines on pieces of paper, sitting up late at her kitchen table holding hands with love and our tummies with laughter, receiving scoldings and heaps of wisdom in equal measure, watching her eyes sparkling as she sat behind the monitor on set watching Rutshire brought to life – every moment spent with Jilly Cooper was bloody marvellous.”