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The celebrated author Jilly Cooper, who died suddenly at the 88 years of age, achieved sales of 11 million copies of her assorted grand books over her half-century literary career. Beloved by every sensible person over a particular age (45), she was brought to a modern audience last year with the TV adaptation of Rivals.

The Beloved Series

Devoted fans would have preferred to see the Rutshire chronicles in chronological order: commencing with Riders, initially released in 1985, in which Rupert Campbell-Black, rogue, heartbreaker, equestrian, is initially presented. But that’s a side note – what was notable about viewing Rivals as a complete series was how well Cooper’s universe had remained relevant. The chronicles distilled the 80s: the shoulder pads and puffball skirts; the preoccupation with social class; the upper class disdaining the Technicolored nouveau riche, both overlooking everyone else while they quibbled about how lukewarm their bubbly was; the gender dynamics, with inappropriate behavior and assault so commonplace they were practically personas in their own right, a duo you could count on to move the plot along.

While Cooper might have occupied this age fully, she was never the typical fish not seeing the ocean because it’s all around. She had a humanity and an observational intelligence that you might not expect from hearing her talk. Every character, from the pet to the horse to her mother and father to her French exchange’s brother, was always “absolutely sweet” – unless, that is, they were “absolutely divine”. People got groped and further in Cooper’s work, but that was never condoned – it’s astonishing how acceptable it is in many supposedly sophisticated books of the time.

Background and Behavior

She was affluent middle-class, which for all intents and purposes meant that her parent had to earn an income, but she’d have defined the classes more by their values. The bourgeoisie fretted about everything, all the time – what other people might think, mostly – and the upper classes didn’t care a … well “nonsense”. She was raunchy, at times very much, but her prose was never vulgar.

She’d describe her childhood in fairytale terms: “Daddy went to the war and Mummy was deeply concerned”. They were both absolutely stunning, engaged in a lifelong love match, and this Cooper replicated in her own marriage, to a businessman of war books, Leo Cooper. She was 24, he was in his late twenties, the union wasn’t without hiccups (he was a bit of a shagger), but she was never less than at ease giving people the recipe for a happy marriage, which is noisy mattress but (key insight), they’re noisy with all the joy. He didn't read her books – he read Prudence once, when he had a cold, and said it made him feel more ill. She wasn't bothered, and said it was reciprocated: she wouldn’t be seen dead reading war chronicles.

Always keep a notebook – it’s very difficult, when you’re mid-twenties, to recollect what twenty-four felt like

The Romance Series

Prudence (the late 70s) was the fifth book in the Romance novels, which began with Emily in the mid-70s. If you discovered Cooper from the later works, having begun in her later universe, the early novels, also known as “the books named after upper-class women” – also Imogen and Harriet – were almost there, every hero feeling like a prototype for Rupert, every female lead a little bit weak. Plus, chapter for chapter (I can't verify statistically), there wasn’t as much sex in them. They were a bit uptight on topics of modesty, women always being anxious that men would think they’re loose, men saying ridiculous comments about why they liked virgins (comparably, apparently, as a true gentleman always wants to be the initial to unseal a tin of instant coffee). I don’t know if I’d suggest reading these novels at a young age. I thought for a while that that’s what posh people genuinely felt.

They were, however, extremely well-crafted, high-functioning romances, which is far more difficult than it seems. You felt Harriet’s unplanned pregnancy, Bella’s difficult family-by-marriage, Emily’s loneliness in Scotland – Cooper could take you from an all-is-lost moment to a jackpot of the emotions, and you could never, even in the initial stages, put your finger on how she achieved it. Suddenly you’d be smiling at her highly specific descriptions of the bedding, the following moment you’d have watery eyes and little understanding how they got there.

Writing Wisdom

Questioned how to be a novelist, Cooper used to say the type of guidance that the famous author would have said, if he could have been arsed to assist a aspiring writer: employ all all of your senses, say how things aromatic and appeared and heard and felt and flavored – it really lifts the narrative. But probably more useful was: “Always keep a journal – it’s very challenging, when you’re twenty-five, to recollect what twenty-four felt like.” That’s one of the primary realizations you detect, in the more detailed, character-rich books, which have seventeen main characters rather than just one, all with extremely posh names, unless they’re Stateside, in which case they’re called Helen. Even an years apart of a few years, between two sisters, between a man and a female, you can detect in the dialogue.

A Literary Mystery

The historical account of Riders was so pitch-perfectly typical of the author it can’t possibly have been real, except it absolutely is true because a major newspaper published a notice about it at the time: she completed the whole manuscript in 1970, long before the first books, took it into the West End and left it on a public transport. Some detail has been intentionally omitted of this tale – what, for example, was so crucial in the urban area that you would leave the sole version of your novel on a bus, which is not that different from leaving your infant on a railway? Certainly an assignation, but what sort?

Cooper was wont to exaggerate her own chaos and ineptitude