The Queen has expressed a sincere tribute to Dame Jilly Cooper following the death of the novelist at the age of 88, wishing her an afterlife abundant with charming men and loyal dogs.

Camilla released a statement praising the beloved author as a ‘legend’ and a ‘remarkably witty and empathetic friend’ following the announcement by Dame Jilly’s family that she passed away due to a fall on Sunday.

She joined many more in honouring the writer renowned as the ‘Queen of the bonkbuster’ for bestsellers such as Riders and Rivals.

The Queen and Dame Jilly, who had been friends for many years, last met just last month when the author attended a prestigious literary festival filled with renowned personalities.

Her Majesty said in a statement today: ‘I was so saddened to learn of Dame Jilly’s death last night.

‘Few writers achieve legendary status in their own lifetimes, but Jilly was one of them, having created a unique literary genre and excelled in it throughout a career that lasted over fifty years.’

‘In person, she was an incredibly witty and understanding friend to me and many others – and it was especially delightful to see her only a few weeks ago at my Queen’s Reading Room Festival where, as always, she shone,’ she added.

‘Alongside my husband, The King, I extend our condolences and sympathy to her entire family. May her afterlife be graced with exceptionally handsome men and loyal dogs.’ Camilla signed the message personally with ‘Camilla R’.

The pair were seen together at the third annual Queen’s Reading Room event held at stately home Chatsworth House in Derbyshire last month. 

The Queen’s Reading Room, launched by the Queen in 2023, is a charity celebrating and promoting the transformative power of books in the UK and beyond – having been born from an Instagram book club launched in the lockdown of 2021.

It seeks to promote the accessibility and joy of stories and storytelling with its free, educational content around books; as well as staging major festivals and events around the UK and internationally.

At a reception filled with the country’s greatest literary talents, Queen Camilla greeted Dame Jilly with a kiss on each cheek as they chatted about the raunchy recent streaming series of the writer’s hit bonkbuster Rivals. 

The Queen told how her ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles – inspiration for Cooper’s handsome lothario Rupert Campbell-Black – and their daughter Laura Lopes were thrilled to be invited to a party earlier this year at Dame Jilly’s Gloucestershire home with the cast.

Her Majesty said: ‘They enjoyed your party. They love a bit of your Rivals. Everybody’s enjoyed your Rivals.’

Speaking after the Queen’s Reading Room event, Dame Jilly said: ‘We chatted about how much we love each other. I’ve been very lucky. It’s lovely they all like it.

‘We’ve known each other a long time. We live near each other.

‘Andrew is a wonderful man. Her Majesty and Andrew still get on so well. They are still great friends who are very fond of each other.’

Dame Jilly was best known for her books in The Rutshire Chronicles, featuring the showjumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black. 

News of her death was announced on Monday morning by her children Felix and Emily, who described in a statement how it had come as a ‘complete shock’.

They said: ‘Mum was the shining light in all of our lives. Her love for all of her family and friends knew no bounds. Her unexpected death has come as a complete shock.

‘We are so proud of everything she achieved in her life and can’t begin to imagine life without her infectious smile and laughter all around us.’

Tributes from the literary and entertainment world flooded in, with fellow author Gyles Brandreth calling Dame Jilly ‘simply adorable. Brilliant, beautiful, funny (so funny), sexy (so sexy!), the best company, the most generous & thoughtful & kind-hearted friend’.

Victoria Smurfit, who starred in the recent TV adaptation of Rivals, described Dame Jilly was a ‘divine queen’ – and the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘Dame Jilly Cooper was a literary force whose wit, warmth and wisdom shaped British culture for over half a century and brought joy to millions.’

The author’s agent Felicity Blunt issued an emotional tribute, saying Dame Jilly was ‘sharply observant and utter fun’.

She added: ‘The privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing and conversation since she was first published over fifty years ago.

‘Jilly will undoubtedly be best remembered for her chart-topping series The Rutshire Chronicles and its havoc-making and handsome show-jumping hero Rupert Campbell-Black.

‘You wouldn’t expect books categorised as bonkbusters to have so emphatically stood the test of time but Jilly wrote with acuity and insight about all things – class, sex, marriage, rivalry, grief and fertility.

‘Her plots were both intricate and gutsy, spiked with sharp observations and wicked humour.

‘She regularly mined her own life for inspiration and there was something Austenesque about her dissections of society, its many prejudices and norms.

‘But if you tried to pay her this compliment, or any compliment, she would brush it aside.

‘She wrote, she said, simply “to add to the sum of human happiness”. In this regard as a writer she was and remains unbeatable.’

She added: ‘Emotionally intelligent, fantastically generous, sharply observant and utter fun Jilly Cooper will be deeply missed by all at Curtis Brown and on the set of Rivals.

‘I have lost a friend, an ally, a confidante and a mentor. But I know she will live forever in the words she put on the page and on the screen.’

Her publisher Bill Scott-Kerr said: ‘Working with Jilly Cooper over the past thirty years has been one of the great privileges and joys of my publishing life.

‘Beyond her genius as a novelist, she was always a personal heroine of mine for so many other reasons.

‘For her kindness and friendship, for her humour and irrepressible enthusiasm, for her curiosity, for her courage, and for her profound love of animals.

‘Jilly may have worn her influence lightly but she was a true trailblazer.

‘As a journalist she went where others feared to tread and as a novelist she did likewise.

‘With a winning combination of glorious storytelling, wicked social commentary and deft, lacerating characterisation, she dissected the behaviour, bad mostly, of the English upper middle classes with the sharpest of scalpels.

‘It is no exaggeration to say that Riders, her first Rutshire Chronicle, changed the course of popular fiction forever.

‘Ribald, rollicking and the very definition of good fun, it, and the 10 Rutshire novels which followed it, were to inspire a generation of women, writers and otherwise, to tell it how it was, whilst giving us a cast of characters who would define a generation and beyond.’

He added: ‘A publishing world without a new Jilly Cooper novel on the horizon is a drabber, less gorgeous place and we shall mourn the loss of a ground-breaking talent and a true friend.’

Dame Jilly’s funeral will be private in line with her wishes, according to her agent.

A public service of thanksgiving will be held in the coming months in Southwark Cathedral to celebrate her life, with a separate announcement made in due cours

Ms Smurfit, who played Maud O’Hara in Rivals, shared a snap of Dame Jilly on Instagram.

She said in the caption: ‘Our divine Queen has gone to the sky. Her words will live forever but the way she made you feel, when in her company was human sunshine. Jilly was everything that was good about being a person.

‘Paddington bear with a naughty twinkle. All love to her beautiful and loving family and friends. #jilly #rivals #rip Will miss that Dame so much.’

Born in Hornchurch, Essex in 1937, Dame Jilly grew up in Yorkshire and attended the private Godolphin School in Salisbury.

Her father was a brigadier and her family moved to London in the 1950s where she became a reporter on The Middlesex Independent when she was 20.

Dame Jilly was a newspaper columnist for the Sunday Times in the 1960s, writing about marriage, sex and housework.

She started writing novels in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until Riders in 1985 that she had her breakthrough.

Her work has been adapted at various points, including an ITV series of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous with Coronation Street star Stephen Billington and Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, while Marcus Gilbert starred in a Riders series during the 1990s.

She won the inaugural Comedy Women in Print lifetime achievement award in 2019 and was made a dame for her services to literature and charity in 2024.

A new book by Dame Jilly is due to be published through Transworld in November.

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