Rivals author Dame Jilly Cooper dies aged 88

Dame Jilly Cooper, the author known for works such as Rivals and Riders and Polo, has died after a fall at the age of 88.

Her family confirmed she died on Sunday morning, saying it came as a “complete shock”.

A statement 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 Jilly was best known for her books in The Rutshire Chronicles, featuring the showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black.

Throughout her career, which spanned over 50 years, she sold millions of books.

One of her most popular works included Rivals, which was adapted into a Disney+ series last year starring David Tennant.

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.

“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.”