Jilly Cooper, the celebrated British author beloved for her bestselling Rutshire Chronicles series, has died at the age of 88. Her agent confirmed that she passed away on Sunday following a fall.
In a statement, 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.”
Felicity Blunt, Cooper’s longtime agent, described working with the author as “the privilege of my career,” adding that Cooper had “defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago.”
Blunt noted that while Cooper will be best remembered for the Rutshire Chronicles and its handsome, havoc-making hero Rupert Campbell-Black, her work possessed a lasting depth. “You wouldn’t expect books categorised as bonkbusters to have so emphatically stood the test of time,” Blunt said, “but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all things — class, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility.”
Blunt praised Cooper’s “intricate and gutsy” plots, which were “spiked with sharp observations and wicked humour.” She added, “There was something Austenesque about her dissections of society, its many prejudices and norms. But if you tried to pay her this 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 recent years, Cooper served as an executive producer on the upcoming Disney+ adaptation of her novel Rivals. The series, starring David Tennant, Alex Hassell, and Danny Dyer, revisits the fictional English county of Rutshire in the 1980s, focusing on the rivalry between Rupert Campbell-Black and television executive Tony Baddingham.
Blunt highlighted Cooper’s invaluable presence on the set, where her “suggestions for story and dialogue inevitably layered and enriched scripts and her presence… was a joy for cast and crew alike.” Remembering her friend and mentor, Blunt described Cooper as “emotionally intelligent, fantastically generous, sharply observant and utter fun. 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.”
A public service of thanksgiving will be held at Southwark Cathedral in London in the coming months.
