Dame Jilly Cooper dead: Riders author dies suddenly as family issue statement

Author Jilly Cooper has died at the age of 88. The much-loved author - who was known as the 'queen of the bonkbusters' after penning scandalous novels including Riders and Rivals - has sadly died following a fall,with her family announcing the heartbreaking news today.

Jilly's children Felix and Emily issued a statement today to confirm their mother died on Sunday morning following a fall. In a statement, 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."

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Jilly’s funeral will be private, as she wished and a public service of thanksgiving will be held in the coming months at Southwark Cathedral to remember the author and her incredible life - that was just as colourful as her characters.

Felicity Blunt, her agent, said it was '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."

She added: "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. In her last few years Jilly added to her curriculum vitae by serving as an executive producer on the Happy Prince adaptation of her novel Rivals for Disney+. Her suggestions for story and dialogue inevitably layered and enhanced scripts and her presence on set was a joy for cast and crew alike. 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."

In a heartbreaking and personal message, she added: "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."

Jilly's books were incredibly popular with her generation, including Queen Camilla - who is said to be a huge fan of her books. The pair crossed paths at the third annual Queen's Reading Room literary festival, with Dame Jilly revealing just what the Queen had said.

"We chatted about how much we love each other. I've been very lucky. It's lovely they all like it. Even her. We've known each other a long time. We live near each other. Andrew [Parker Bowles, Camilla's former husband] is a wonderful man. Her Majesty and Andrew still get on so well. They are still great friends who are very fond of each other," she said.

Jilly said that as a young girl, she feared never marrying - and ended up with her husband Leo Cooper for over five decades before his sad death in 2013. Giving her advice, she shared: "Trust in the unexpected. At 17 I went to a fortune teller who urged me to concentrate on a career as I was very unlikely to get married. I was distraught. All I wanted was a lovely husband.

"If I’d known I was going to be married to a wonderful man for 52 years, I’d have stopped worrying."

Tributes have flooded in for Jilly, including from Kirstie Allsopp, who wrote: "And now Jilly Cooper has died, she always seemed so young and vibrant, I know 88 is a good age but this is very sad news. A British institution, funny, enthusiastic and self deprecating, we don’t see enough of it these days. Bless you Dame Jilly, Rest in Peace."

Jilly was born on 21 February 1937 in Hornchurch, Essex, and after a stint in journalism, she began running a column in the Sunday Times Magazine about sex, marriage and housework for thirteen years.

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