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The beloved novelist Jilly Cooper, who died suddenly at the 88 years old, achieved sales of 11 million copies of her many sweeping books over her five-decade literary career. Beloved by all discerning readers over a particular age (mid-forties), she was introduced to a modern audience last year with the Disney+ adaptation of Rivals.

The Rutshire Chronicles

Longtime readers would have wanted to see the Rutshire chronicles in sequence: beginning with Riders, initially released in 1985, in which Rupert Campbell-Black, scoundrel, philanderer, equestrian, is debuts. But that’s a minor point – what was notable about viewing Rivals as a complete series was how well Cooper’s world had stood the test of time. The chronicles encapsulated the 1980s: the broad shoulders and bubble skirts; the fixation on status; nobility sneering at the Technicolored nouveau riche, both overlooking everyone else while they snipped about how room-temperature their sparkling wine was; the gender dynamics, with harassment and misconduct so commonplace they were almost personas in their own right, a pair you could rely on to drive the narrative forward.

While Cooper might have occupied this period completely, she was never the proverbial fish not perceiving the ocean because it’s everywhere. She had a humanity and an keen insight that you maybe wouldn’t guess from hearing her talk. All her creations, from the pet to the horse to her family to her French exchange’s brother, was always “completely delightful” – unless, that is, they were “truly heavenly”. People got assaulted and further in Cooper’s work, but that was never OK – it’s surprising how OK it is in many far more literary books of the era.

Social Strata and Personality

She was upper-middle-class, which for all intents and purposes meant that her parent had to earn an income, but she’d have described the classes more by their customs. The middle classes worried about all things, all the time – what other people might think, mainly – and the elite didn’t give a … well “such things”. She was spicy, at times very much, but her language was always refined.

She’d recount her family life in storybook prose: “Father went to Dunkirk and Mummy was terribly, terribly worried”. They were both absolutely stunning, engaged in a enduring romance, and this Cooper replicated in her own union, to a editor of war books, Leo Cooper. She was twenty-four, he was twenty-seven, the marriage wasn’t perfect (he was a bit of a shagger), but she was consistently comfortable giving people the formula for a successful union, which is squeaky bed but (key insight), they’re noisy with all the joy. He didn't read her books – he tried Prudence once, when he had a cold, and said it made him feel unwell. She took no offense, and said it was returned: she wouldn’t be spotted reading war chronicles.

Forever keep a diary – it’s very hard, when you’re 25, to recollect what being 24 felt like

Early Works

Prudence (1978) was the fifth installment in the Romance series, which commenced with Emily in the mid-70s. If you discovered Cooper backwards, having commenced in her later universe, the Romances, AKA “the books named after affluent ladies” – also Imogen and Harriet – were close but no cigar, every protagonist feeling like a trial version for the iconic character, every female lead a little bit drippy. Plus, line for line (I can't verify statistically), there was less sex in them. They were a bit reserved on issues of modesty, women always worrying that men would think they’re loose, men saying batshit things about why they preferred virgins (comparably, seemingly, as a genuine guy always wants to be the primary to break a container of coffee). I don’t know if I’d advise reading these stories at a impressionable age. I thought for a while that that’s what posh people genuinely felt.

They were, however, remarkably precisely constructed, effective romances, which is much harder than it sounds. You lived Harriet’s unwanted pregnancy, Bella’s annoying relatives, Emily’s remote Scottish life – Cooper could take you from an hopeless moment to a lottery win of the soul, and you could never, even in the initial stages, put your finger on how she managed it. Suddenly you’d be laughing at her incredibly close depictions of the bedding, the next you’d have watery eyes and little understanding how they appeared.

Writing Wisdom

Questioned how to be a author, Cooper used to say the kind of thing that the famous author would have said, if he could have been inclined to help out a beginner: employ all all of your faculties, say how things smelled and seemed and audible and touched and flavored – it greatly improves the narrative. But perhaps more practical was: “Constantly keep a notebook – it’s very hard, when you’re twenty-five, to recall what being 24 felt like.” That’s one of the initial observations you observe, in the more extensive, character-rich books, which have 17 heroines rather than just one lead, all with very upper-class names, unless they’re Stateside, in which case they’re called a simple moniker. Even an age difference of several years, between two relatives, between a male and a female, you can perceive in the conversation.

The Lost Manuscript

The historical account of Riders was so exactly Jilly Cooper it might not have been true, except it absolutely is factual because London’s Evening Standard made a public request about it at the time: she completed the complete book in 1970, long before the early novels, brought it into the city center and left it on a bus. Some context has been intentionally omitted of this tale – what, for example, was so important in the city that you would leave the sole version of your book on a train, which is not that far from forgetting your child on a transport? Certainly an meeting, but what sort?

Cooper was prone to amp up her own messiness and clumsiness