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Jilly Cooper, who left us unexpectedly at the age of 88, sold 11 million volumes of her various sweeping books over her 50-year literary career. Adored by anyone with any sense over a specific age (forty-five), she was introduced to a new generation last year with the Disney+ adaptation of Rivals.

The Rutshire Chronicles

Devoted fans would have preferred to see the Rutshire chronicles in sequence: starting with Riders, first published in 1985, in which the character Rupert Campbell-Black, rogue, charmer, horse rider, is initially presented. But that’s a minor point – what was remarkable about viewing Rivals as a box set was how well Cooper’s fictional realm had stood the test of time. The chronicles distilled the eighties: the broad shoulders and voluminous skirts; the fixation on status; aristocrats sneering at the flashy new money, both ignoring everyone else while they quibbled about how lukewarm their bubbly was; the gender dynamics, with inappropriate behavior and misconduct so commonplace they were almost figures in their own right, a double act you could count on to move the plot along.

While Cooper might have inhabited this period totally, she was never the classic fish not noticing the ocean because it’s all around. She had a empathy and an observational intelligence that you might not expect from her public persona. All her creations, from the pet to the pony to her mother and father to her French exchange’s brother, was always “utterly charming” – unless, that is, they were “absolutely divine”. People got harassed and more in Cooper’s work, but that was never OK – it’s remarkable how acceptable it is in many supposedly sophisticated books of the period.

Class and Character

She was upper-middle-class, which for real-world terms meant that her father had to work for a living, but she’d have characterized the classes more by their values. The bourgeoisie worried about everything, all the time – what others might think, mainly – and the elite didn’t give a … well “stuff”. She was spicy, at times very much, but her prose was never coarse.

She’d recount her childhood in idyllic language: “Father went to battle and Mother was deeply concerned”. They were both absolutely stunning, involved in a eternal partnership, and this Cooper emulated in her own marriage, to a editor of military histories, Leo Cooper. She was twenty-four, he was in his late twenties, the relationship wasn’t smooth sailing (he was a bit of a shagger), but she was never less than at ease giving people the secret for a successful union, which is noisy mattress but (big reveal), they’re creaking with all the joy. He didn't read her books – he tried Prudence once, when he had a cold, and said it made him feel unwell. She wasn't bothered, and said it was mutual: she wouldn’t be spotted reading battle accounts.

Always keep a journal – it’s very difficult, when you’re 25, to recollect what twenty-four felt like

Initial Novels

Prudence (the late 70s) was the fifth volume in the Romance novels, which began with Emily in 1975. If you discovered Cooper from the later works, having commenced in Rutshire, the early novels, alternatively called “the books named after posh girls” – also Octavia and Harriet – were close but no cigar, every hero feeling like a test-run for the iconic character, every main character a little bit drippy. Plus, chapter for chapter (I haven’t actually run the numbers), there wasn't the same quantity of sex in them. They were a bit reserved on issues of decorum, women always being anxious that men would think they’re immoral, men saying batshit things about why they favored virgins (in much the same way, seemingly, 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 stories at a impressionable age. I believed for a while that that’s what affluent individuals really thought.

They were, however, remarkably tightly written, high-functioning romances, which is considerably tougher than it seems. You experienced Harriet’s unplanned pregnancy, Bella’s pissy relatives, Emily’s Scottish isolation – Cooper could transport you from an desperate moment to a jackpot of the soul, and you could not once, even in the beginning, identify how she managed it. Suddenly you’d be laughing at her incredibly close depictions of the sheets, the following moment you’d have tears in your eyes and no idea how they got there.

Literary Guidance

Asked how to be a novelist, Cooper would often state the type of guidance that Ernest Hemingway would have said, if he could have been inclined to assist a novice: utilize all 5 of your perceptions, say how things smelled and seemed and sounded and touched and tasted – it significantly enhances the prose. But likely more helpful was: “Constantly keep a diary – it’s very challenging, when you’re 25, to remember what twenty-four felt like.” That’s one of the first things you observe, in the more detailed, more populated books, which have numerous female leads rather than just one, all with decidedly aristocratic names, unless they’re American, in which case they’re called a simple moniker. Even an years apart of a few years, between two siblings, between a gentleman and a woman, you can hear in the conversation.

An Author's Tale

The origin story of Riders was so perfectly typical of the author it couldn't possibly have been true, except it certainly was factual because a major newspaper ran an appeal about it at the period: she finished the entire draft in 1970, prior to the first books, carried it into the downtown and forgot it on a public transport. Some context has been deliberately left out of this story – what, for example, was so significant in the city that you would leave the only copy of your novel on a bus, which is not that unlike abandoning your infant on a railway? Surely an meeting, but which type?

Cooper was wont to exaggerate her own disorder and clumsiness