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Jilly Cooper, who died suddenly at the age of 88, sold 11 million volumes of her various sweeping books over her 50-year literary career. Cherished by every sensible person over a specific age (forty-five), she was introduced to a younger audience last year with the TV adaptation of Rivals.

Cooper's Fictional Universe

Cooper purists would have liked to watch the Rutshire chronicles in order: starting with Riders, initially released in 1985, in which the infamous Rupert Campbell-Black, cad, charmer, horse rider, is first introduced. But that’s a minor point – what was remarkable about seeing Rivals as a binge-watch was how brilliantly Cooper’s universe had stood the test of time. The chronicles captured the 1980s: the broad shoulders and bubble skirts; the fixation on status; nobility sneering at the flashy new money, both dismissing everyone else while they quibbled about how lukewarm their bubbly was; the gender dynamics, with unwanted advances and misconduct so commonplace they were almost figures in their own right, a duo you could trust to advance the story.

While Cooper might have lived in this era fully, she was never the classic fish not noticing the ocean because it’s everywhere. She had a humanity and an perceptive wisdom that you could easily miss from her public persona. Everyone, from the dog to the pony to her family to her French exchange’s brother, was always “absolutely sweet” – unless, that is, they were “completely exquisite”. People got assaulted and more in Cooper’s work, but that was never condoned – it’s astonishing how acceptable it is in many far more literary books of the time.

Background and Behavior

She was upper-middle-class, which for practical purposes meant that her father had to earn an income, but she’d have described the classes more by their customs. The bourgeoisie anxiously contemplated about all things, all the time – what society might think, primarily – and the upper classes didn’t give a … well “such things”. She was spicy, at times extremely, but her language was never vulgar.

She’d recount her childhood in fairytale terms: “Dad went to Dunkirk and Mother was terribly, terribly worried”. They were both completely gorgeous, engaged in a eternal partnership, and this Cooper emulated in her own marriage, to a editor of historical accounts, Leo Cooper. She was 24, he was twenty-seven, the marriage wasn’t without hiccups (he was a bit of a shagger), but she was always comfortable giving people the secret for a successful union, which is creaking bed springs but (big reveal), they’re creaking with all the mirth. He avoided reading her books – he tried Prudence once, when he had a cold, and said it made him feel more ill. She wasn't bothered, and said it was returned: she wouldn’t be seen dead reading battle accounts.

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

Early Works

Prudence (the late 70s) was the fifth volume in the Romance series, which began with Emily in the mid-70s. If you approached Cooper in reverse, having begun in her later universe, the initial books, AKA “those ones named after posh girls” – also Imogen and Harriet – were almost there, every hero feeling like a prototype for the iconic character, every heroine a little bit weak. Plus, line for line (I can't verify statistically), there wasn't the same quantity of sex in them. They were a bit reserved on matters of decorum, women always fretting that men would think they’re immoral, men saying batshit things about why they preferred virgins (comparably, seemingly, as a real man always wants to be the first to unseal a tin of coffee). I don’t know if I’d advise reading these stories at a formative age. I thought for a while that that was what affluent individuals actually believed.

They were, however, incredibly precisely constructed, effective romances, which is far more difficult than it appears. You experienced Harriet’s unwanted pregnancy, Bella’s pissy in-laws, Emily’s Scottish isolation – Cooper could guide you from an all-is-lost moment to a windfall of the emotions, and you could not once, even in the beginning, identify how she managed it. One minute you’d be smiling at her highly specific accounts of the bedding, the following moment you’d have tears in your eyes and little understanding how they appeared.

Literary Guidance

Questioned how to be a novelist, Cooper used to say the kind of thing that Ernest Hemingway would have said, if he could have been bothered to help out a beginner: employ all five of your senses, say how things smelled and appeared and audible and tactile and flavored – it significantly enhances the prose. But probably more useful was: “Forever keep a diary – it’s very hard, when you’re 25, to remember what age 24 felt like.” That’s one of the first things you detect, in the more detailed, densely peopled books, which have numerous female leads rather than just a single protagonist, all with decidedly aristocratic names, unless they’re from the US, in which case they’re called a common name. Even an years apart of a few years, between two relatives, between a gentleman and a woman, you can hear in the conversation.

The Lost Manuscript

The historical account of Riders was so perfectly typical of the author it couldn't possibly have been true, except it absolutely is real because a major newspaper published a notice about it at the era: she completed the complete book in the early 70s, well before the early novels, brought it into the downtown and left it on a public transport. Some texture has been deliberately left out of this anecdote – what, for instance, was so significant in the city that you would leave the unique draft of your manuscript on a bus, which is not that unlike leaving your baby on a train? Surely an rendezvous, but which type?

Cooper was inclined to embellish her own chaos and haplessness