The Queen has paid tribute to the author Dame Jilly Cooper who has died at the age of 88, describing her as a “legend” and a “wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so many”.
The writer – known for her “bonkbusters” including Riders, Rivals and Polo – died unexpectedly on Sunday morning after a fall, with her children Felix and Emily saying it had come as a “complete shock”.
Camilla said she hoped Dame Jilly’s “hereafter” would be “filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs”.
Dame Jilly was a long-standing friend of Camilla, and the author based her fictional seducer and showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black partly on the Queen’s ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles.
The Queen, who is is a passionate supporter of literacy charities and set up her own Instagram Reading Room book group, said in a message released by Buckingham Palace: “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.”
The message was signed “Camilla R”.
Dame Jilly was known for her steamy fiction focusing on scandal and adultery in upper class society.
Her hit titles also Mount! and The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, along with her most recent work Tackle!
Her work Rivals was recently adapted as a hit television series by Disney+ starring David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson.
Her children Felix and Emily said in a statement: “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.”
The executive producers of the Rivals series also paid tribute and said they were “broken-hearted” at the news of her death and that it had been the most “incredible honour” to work with her.
Dominic Treadwell-Collins and Alex Lamb added: “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.
“We have been so lucky to be able to call her our friend – and know that her legacy will endure in her writing, her television and the encouragement to have fun that she gave us all.”
Dame Jilly’s agent Felicity Blunt said it was the privilege of her career to have worked with a woman who has “defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over 50 years ago”.
“Jilly will undoubtedly be best remembered for her chart-topping series The Rutshire Chronicles and its havoc-making and handsome showjumping hero Rupert Campbell-Black,” she said.
“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.”
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.
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, Mr Sunak 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.”
Born in Hornchurch, Essex in 1937, Dame Jilly grew up in Yorkshire and attended the private Godolphin School in Salisbury.
Her father was a brigadier and her family moved to London in the 1950s where she became a reporter on The Middlesex Independent when she was 20.
She has said she moved to public relations and was sacked from 22 jobs before ending up in book publishing.
Her work has been adapted at various points, including an ITV series of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous with Coronation Street star Stephen Billington and Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, while Marcus Gilbert starred in a Riders series during the 1990s.
She won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award in 2019 and was made a dame for her services to literature and charity in 2024.
A new edition of How To Survive Christmas by Dame Jilly is due to be published through Transworld in November.
The book, first published in 1986, is described as “an irreverent and witty guide to surviving the festive season”.
Dame Jilly’s funeral will be private in line with her wishes, according to her agent.
A public service of thanksgiving will be held in the coming months in Southwark Cathedral to celebrate her life, with a separate announcement made in due course.
