Dame Jilly Cooper, the legendary author of the Rutshire Chronicles, whose novels blended wit, romance, and British class satire, passes away at 88 (Photo: X | @elaine_paige)
Dame Jilly Cooper is the British novelist best known for her glamorous and scandalous Rutshire Chronicles, died age 88 from a fall that was, apparently, accidental. She is survived by her children Emily and Felix, who described her as the shining light in all our lives and praised her love without limit and vibrant humor.
She was born as Jilly Sallitt on February 21, 1937, Cooper became an overnight success with Riders in 1985, which would be followed up with a consecutive best-selling of titles Rivals, Polo and The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous.
Her novels were a blend of escapist romance, using witty social commentary, class conflicts and unabashed sensuality, resulting in creating a unique style that drew humongous readership. This earned her the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2024, conferred in recognition of her cultural footprint.
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Queen Camilla, who had been a great admirer over the years, termed her as a legend and wittily compassionate. The Rivals, another one of Cooper's books was made into an adaptation series that screened on Disney+, allowing younger viewers to view her imaginative world. In that adaptation, the themes of desire, rivalry and society's undercurrents resonated anew. The Disney+ executives credited Cooper's lively characters for adding joy and mischief to often somber stories.
Born as Jilly Sallitt in 1937 in Essex, she began her career as a local journalist and then went on to write for The Sunday Times Magazine. She had written nonfiction works in the early stages regarding marriage, class and modern lifestyle, forming the basis of the acute social commentary that seeped into fiction later on. After experimenting with romantic novels in the 1970s, it was with the Rutshire Chronicles that she really found her feet, selling more than 11 million copies and almost becoming a household name.
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Dame Jilly Cooper was married to a publisher Leo Cooper, he died at their Gloucestershire home in December 2013 at the age of 79, he had been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease for over a decade. Cooper did face very bad times all her life, from losing her husband to saving herself from the train crash at Ladbroke Grove in 1999.
It is not known what Dame Jilly Cooper’s net worth was in 2006, she told the Daily Mail that We bought our lovely house in Gloucestershire 23 years ago for £145,000.
But her humor, warmth and storytelling did not dim down with those events. Her last novel is Tackle in 2023 revisited her cherished characters in unfamiliar settings, proving that her creative spark survived until the end. The family has planned a private funeral which will be followed by a public thanksgiving service at Southwark Cathedral in London to celebrate this outstanding individual's legacy.
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Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational and editorial purposes only. It is a respectful tribute to Dame Jilly Cooper, based on publicly available information.
