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Jilly Cooper, who died suddenly at the 88 years old, achieved sales of 11 million books of her many sweeping books over her 50-year writing career. Adored by all discerning readers over a particular age (mid-forties), she was brought to a modern audience last year with the Disney+ adaptation of Rivals.

Cooper's Fictional Universe

Cooper purists would have wanted to watch the Rutshire chronicles in chronological order: starting with Riders, initially released in the mid-80s, in which the infamous Rupert Campbell-Black, rogue, philanderer, rider, is initially presented. But that’s a side note – what was notable about viewing Rivals as a binge-watch was how effectively Cooper’s world had aged. The chronicles distilled the 1980s: the shoulder pads and puffball skirts; the obsession with class; the upper class looking down on the flashy new money, both ignoring everyone else while they quibbled about how warm their bubbly was; the intimate power struggles, with harassment and misconduct so commonplace they were almost personas in their own right, a double act you could count on to drive the narrative forward.

While Cooper might have lived in this period completely, she was never the typical fish not perceiving the ocean because it’s ubiquitous. She had a empathy and an keen insight that you might not expect from her public persona. Everyone, from the dog to the horse to her family to her international student's relative, was always “absolutely sweet” – unless, that is, they were “absolutely divine”. People got harassed and more in Cooper’s work, but that was never condoned – it’s remarkable how acceptable it is in many supposedly sophisticated books of the time.

Social Strata and Personality

She was well-to-do, which for real-world terms meant that her father had to hold down a job, but she’d have characterized the social classes more by their values. The middle-class people fretted about every little detail, all the time – what society might think, mostly – and the elite didn’t bother with “stuff”. She was risqué, at times very much, but her language was never coarse.

She’d recount her family life in fairytale terms: “Dad went to the war and Mother was extremely anxious”. They were both absolutely stunning, involved in a eternal partnership, and this Cooper replicated in her own partnership, to a businessman of war books, Leo Cooper. She was twenty-four, he was in his late twenties, the marriage wasn’t without hiccups (he was a philanderer), but she was never less than confident giving people the secret for a happy marriage, which is squeaky bed but (big reveal), they’re noisy with all the laughter. He never read her books – he picked up Prudence once, when he had flu, and said it made him feel more ill. She wasn't bothered, and said it was returned: she wouldn’t be spotted reading war chronicles.

Always keep a diary – it’s very hard, when you’re mid-twenties, to recollect what age 24 felt like

Initial Novels

Prudence (the late 70s) was the fifth volume in the Romance series, which started with Emily in the mid-70s. If you discovered Cooper backwards, having commenced in the main series, the initial books, alternatively called “those ones named after posh girls” – also Octavia and Harriet – were almost there, every hero feeling like a prototype for Campbell-Black, every main character a little bit drippy. Plus, line for line (Without exact data), there wasn't the same quantity of sex in them. They were a bit reserved on topics of propriety, women always worrying that men would think they’re promiscuous, men saying ridiculous comments about why they liked virgins (similarly, ostensibly, as a genuine guy always wants to be the primary to unseal a tin of coffee). I don’t know if I’d suggest reading these novels at a formative age. I assumed for a while that that is what affluent individuals really thought.

They were, however, incredibly precisely constructed, effective romances, which is much harder than it seems. You lived Harriet’s unwanted pregnancy, Bella’s annoying in-laws, Emily’s remote Scottish life – Cooper could take you from an all-is-lost moment to a jackpot of the soul, and you could not ever, even in the initial stages, pinpoint how she achieved it. At one moment you’d be smiling at her highly specific accounts of the bedding, the following moment you’d have watery eyes and little understanding how they appeared.

Writing Wisdom

Questioned how to be a author, Cooper frequently advised the type of guidance that the famous author would have said, if he could have been bothered to help out a aspiring writer: use all all of your senses, say how things smelled and appeared and audible and tactile and flavored – it significantly enhances the prose. But likely more helpful was: “Always keep a notebook – it’s very challenging, when you’re mid-twenties, to recall what age 24 felt like.” That’s one of the first things you notice, in the more detailed, character-rich 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 Helen. Even an years apart of four years, between two relatives, between a gentleman and a lady, you can detect in the conversation.

An Author's Tale

The backstory of Riders was so pitch-perfectly typical of the author it can’t possibly have been true, except it absolutely is true because a major newspaper published a notice about it at the time: she completed the complete book in 1970, well before the early novels, took it into the West End and forgot it on a bus. Some texture has been intentionally omitted of this story – what, for instance, was so crucial in the city that you would abandon the unique draft of your book on a public transport, which is not that different from leaving your child on a railway? Certainly an meeting, but what kind?

Cooper was wont to amp up her own disorder and ineptitude