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Jilly Cooper, who left us unexpectedly at the 88 years old, racked up sales of 11m volumes of her many grand books over her 50-year writing career. Cherished by anyone with any sense over a certain age (45), she was presented to a modern audience last year with the TV adaptation of Rivals.

Cooper's Fictional Universe

Longtime readers would have liked to see the Rutshire chronicles in sequence: beginning with Riders, first published in the mid-80s, in which the infamous Rupert Campbell-Black, scoundrel, heartbreaker, horse rider, is first introduced. But that’s a minor point – what was remarkable about seeing Rivals as a box set was how well Cooper’s universe had stood the test of time. The chronicles encapsulated the 1980s: the shoulder pads and puffball skirts; the preoccupation with social class; aristocrats sneering at the flashy new money, both overlooking everyone else while they complained about how lukewarm their sparkling wine was; the sexual politics, with unwanted advances and assault so routine they were practically characters in their own right, a duo you could count on to move the plot along.

While Cooper might have occupied this period totally, she was never the typical fish not seeing the ocean because it’s all around. She had a compassion and an keen insight that you might not expect from hearing her talk. Every character, from the pet to the horse to her parents to her foreign exchange sibling, was always “completely delightful” – unless, that is, they were “truly heavenly”. People got assaulted and more in Cooper’s work, but that was never acceptable – it’s remarkable how OK it is in many more highbrow books of the era.

Background and Behavior

She was well-to-do, which for practical purposes meant that her father had to work for a living, but she’d have defined the social classes more by their values. The bourgeoisie worried about everything, all the time – what others might think, primarily – and the aristocracy didn’t care a … well “stuff”. She was raunchy, at times extremely, but her dialogue was never coarse.

She’d narrate her family life in fairytale terms: “Dad went to the war and Mother was deeply concerned”. They were both utterly beautiful, involved in a eternal partnership, and this Cooper mirrored in her own partnership, to a businessman of historical accounts, Leo Cooper. She was twenty-four, he was in his late twenties, the union wasn’t perfect (he was a bit of a shagger), but she was always confident giving people the secret for a happy marriage, which is creaking bed springs but (big reveal), they’re noisy with all the mirth. He avoided reading her books – he picked up 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 caught reading military history.

Always keep a notebook – it’s very challenging, when you’re 25, to recall what age 24 felt like

The Romance Series

Prudence (the late 70s) was the fifth book in the Romance series, which commenced with Emily in 1975. If you discovered Cooper from the later works, having begun in Rutshire, the early novels, alternatively called “the novels named after posh girls” – also Bella and Harriet – were almost there, every hero feeling like a trial version for Campbell-Black, every female lead a little bit insipid. Plus, chapter for chapter (I can't verify statistically), there was less sex in them. They were a bit uptight on issues of propriety, women always being anxious that men would think they’re promiscuous, men saying outrageous statements about why they preferred virgins (in much the same way, ostensibly, as a genuine guy always wants to be the first to open a tin of instant coffee). I don’t know if I’d suggest reading these books at a impressionable age. I believed for a while that that’s what the upper class really thought.

They were, however, extremely tightly written, high-functioning romances, which is considerably tougher than it seems. You experienced Harriet’s surprise baby, Bella’s difficult family-by-marriage, Emily’s loneliness in Scotland – Cooper could take you from an hopeless moment to a jackpot of the heart, and you could not once, even in the initial stages, put your finger on how she achieved it. One minute you’d be chuckling at her meticulously detailed depictions of the bedding, the next you’d have watery eyes and uncertainty how they appeared.

Authorial Advice

Inquired how to be a author, Cooper frequently advised the type of guidance that the literary giant would have said, if he could have been inclined to help out a novice: utilize all 5 of your senses, say how things scented and seemed and audible and felt and palatable – it really lifts the writing. But perhaps more practical was: “Forever keep a notebook – it’s very challenging, when you’re twenty-five, to remember what age 24 felt like.” That’s one of the initial observations you observe, in the more detailed, character-rich books, which have numerous female leads rather than just one, all with very upper-class names, unless they’re Stateside, in which case they’re called a common name. Even an age difference of several years, between two siblings, between a gentleman and a female, you can detect in the dialogue.

The Lost Manuscript

The historical account of Riders was so exactly typical of the author it couldn't possibly have been true, except it definitely is factual because a London paper ran an appeal about it at the period: she wrote the whole manuscript in 1970, long before the early novels, carried it into the downtown and forgot it on a public transport. Some texture has been intentionally omitted of this anecdote – what, for case, was so important in the urban area that you would leave the sole version of your novel on a train, which is not that far from forgetting your child on a transport? Certainly an rendezvous, but what sort?

Cooper was prone to embellish her own chaos and ineptitude