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The celebrated author Jilly Cooper, who passed away unexpectedly at the 88 years old, achieved sales of 11m volumes of her various epic books over her 50-year writing career. Adored by all discerning readers over a certain age (45), she was presented to a younger audience last year with the TV adaptation of Rivals.

The Beloved Series

Devoted fans would have wanted to view the Rutshire chronicles in order: commencing with Riders, first published in 1985, in which Rupert Campbell-Black, cad, heartbreaker, rider, is initially presented. But that’s a sidebar – what was striking about watching Rivals as a box set was how well Cooper’s world had remained relevant. The chronicles captured the 80s: the broad shoulders and puffball skirts; the obsession with class; nobility sneering at the flashy new money, both overlooking everyone else while they snipped about how room-temperature their sparkling wine was; the gender dynamics, with harassment and abuse so everyday they were virtually characters in their own right, a duo you could trust to drive the narrative forward.

While Cooper might have inhabited this period totally, she was never the classic fish not seeing the ocean because it’s all around. She had a humanity and an keen insight that you maybe wouldn’t guess from hearing her talk. Everyone, from the pet to the pony to her parents to her foreign exchange sibling, was always “completely delightful” – unless, that is, they were “completely exquisite”. People got harassed and more in Cooper’s work, but that was never acceptable – it’s remarkable how tolerated it is in many supposedly sophisticated books of the era.

Background and Behavior

She was well-to-do, which for real-world terms meant that her father had to work for a living, but she’d have defined the strata more by their customs. The middle classes anxiously contemplated about every little detail, all the time – what other people might think, primarily – and the aristocracy didn’t give a … well “such things”. She was raunchy, at times very much, but her language was never coarse.

She’d describe her family life in idyllic language: “Father went to Dunkirk and Mother was deeply concerned”. They were both utterly beautiful, involved in a lifelong love match, and this Cooper replicated in her own partnership, to a publisher of war books, Leo Cooper. She was 24, he was in his late twenties, the union wasn’t smooth sailing (he was a unfaithful type), but she was never less than comfortable giving people the formula for a successful union, which is creaking bed springs but (crucial point), they’re noisy with all the mirth. He avoided reading her books – he read Prudence once, when he had flu, and said it made him feel worse. She wasn't bothered, and said it was reciprocated: she wouldn’t be caught reading war chronicles.

Always keep a diary – it’s very challenging, when you’re mid-twenties, to recall what being 24 felt like

Early Works

Prudence (1978) was the fifth volume in the Romance series, which started with Emily in 1975. If you approached Cooper in reverse, having commenced in Rutshire, the Romances, also known as “those ones named after affluent ladies” – also Bella and Harriet – were close but no cigar, every male lead feeling like a prototype for the iconic character, every female lead a little bit weak. Plus, line for line (I can't verify statistically), there was less sex in them. They were a bit uptight on matters 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 true gentleman always wants to be the first to unseal a jar of coffee). I don’t know if I’d advise reading these stories at a impressionable age. I assumed for a while that that’s what the upper class genuinely felt.

They were, however, extremely well-crafted, successful romances, which is much harder than it appears. You felt Harriet’s unplanned pregnancy, Bella’s pissy relatives, Emily’s loneliness in Scotland – Cooper could guide you from an hopeless moment to a lottery win of the heart, and you could not once, even in the initial stages, pinpoint how she achieved it. Suddenly you’d be chuckling at her incredibly close accounts of the bed linen, the next you’d have emotional response and uncertainty how they got there.

Writing Wisdom

Inquired how to be a novelist, Cooper used to say the type of guidance that Ernest Hemingway would have said, if he could have been arsed to guide a aspiring writer: utilize all 5 of your perceptions, say how things scented and seemed and heard and touched and flavored – it really lifts the writing. But perhaps more practical was: “Always keep a journal – it’s very challenging, when you’re 25, to recall what being 24 felt like.” That’s one of the first things you observe, in the longer, more populated books, which have 17 heroines rather than just one, all with very upper-class names, unless they’re from the US, in which case they’re called a common name. Even an years apart of several years, between two sisters, between a gentleman and a lady, you can hear in the speech.

An Author's Tale

The origin story of Riders was so exactly characteristically Cooper it couldn't possibly have been accurate, except it absolutely is real because a major newspaper published a notice about it at the era: she finished the whole manuscript in 1970, well before the early novels, brought it into the city center and misplaced it on a bus. Some context has been purposely excluded of this anecdote – what, for instance, was so important in the city that you would leave the only copy of your book on a bus, which is not that different from forgetting your child on a train? Surely an meeting, but which type?

Cooper was inclined to amp up her own chaos and haplessness