The British royal family, via Queen Camilla, sent a heartfelt message after English author Jilly Cooper‘s death at 88.
On Monday, Oct. 6, Cooper’s agent Felicity Blunt confirmed the sad news to The Hollywood Reporter, noting that the author died on Sunday, Oct. 5, after suffering a fall.
âThe privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over 50 years ago,â Blunt said in a statement. âJilly will undoubtedly be best remembered for her chart-topping series The Rutshire Chronicles and its havoc-making and handsome show-jumping hero Rupert Campbell-Black. You wouldnât expect books categorised as bonkbusters to have so emphatically stood the test of time but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all thingsâclass, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility.â
Rivals, a TV adaptation of Cooper’s series The Rutshire Chronicles, premiered on Disney+ and Hulu in 2024; Season 2 is expected to drop in 2026. Other notable novels of hers include Polo and The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous, as well as the non-fiction book Animals in War.
Dame Jilly Cooper attends a special gala screening after party for ‘Rivals’ on Oct.15, 2024, in London, England. (Jed Cullen/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Disney+)
Blunt added, âHer 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 âto add to the sum of human happinessâ. In this regard as a writer she was and remains unbeatable.â
In the wake of Cooper’s death, Queen Camilla released a statement via the royal family’s official Instagram account.
“I was saddened to learn of Dame Jilly’s death last night,” she wrote in a message next to a picture of Cooper via Instagram Stories. “Very few writers get to be a legend in their own lifetime but Jilly was once, creating a whole new genre of literature and making it her own through a career that spanned over five decades.”
Queen Camilla, 78, continued, “In person she was a wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so manyâand 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.”
To conclude her tribute, the royal wrote, “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.”
Queen Camilla and Jilly Cooper pose during a reception to mark the launch of the Queen’s reading room medal at Clarence House on March 25, 2025, in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
In 2024, Cooper was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature and charity.
âHer unexpected death has come as a complete shock,â Cooper’s children, Felix and Emily, said in a statement, per BBC. âWe are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and canât begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us.â
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This story was originally reported by Parade on Oct 6, 2025, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.