LITERARY TITAN

Dame Jilly Cooper, Novelist Behind ‘Rivals,’ Dies at 88

The dame’s writings are viewed by many as the high-water mark of late 20th-Century British trash fiction.

Literary circles are in mourning after the passing of one of the U.K.’s virtuosos of steamy fiction. Dame Jilly Cooper died Sunday morning at the age of 88 after suffering a fall, her publisher announced the following day. Renowned for her “bonkbuster” style of writing, she penned salacious and melodramatic fictional accounts of the scandalous sex lives of England’s uber-wealthy landed gentry. Her best-known work is The Rutshire Chronicles, which enjoyed small-screen success last year with the show Rivals on Disney+. It follows the drama of well-to-do media types in the affluent Cotswolds area of rural England. Last year, the raunchy romp raconteur described being honored with a damehood by King Charles as “orgasmic.” Despite her own work being labeled “bonkbusters”, she told The Guardian in 2016 that it was “a bit of everything.” “You wouldn’t expect books categorized 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 agent, Felicity Blunt, said. “Her unexpected death has come as a complete shock,” her children, Felix and Emily, said, announcing her passing. “We are so proud of everything she achieved.”