The British author Jilly Cooper, the best-selling writer of Rivals, Riders, and Polo, has died after a fall at the age of 88.
Her children, Felix and Emily, said her death on Sunday morning has come as a "complete shock".
In a statement, 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."
Jilly Cooper was best known for her books in The Rutshire Chronicles, featuring the show-jumping lothario Rupert Campbell-Black.
One of the books, Rivals, was recently adapted for television by Disney+.
Paying tribute, Jilly Cooper's agent Felicity Blunt said: "The privilege of my career has been working with a woman who has defined culture, writing, and conversation since she was first published over 50 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.
"In her last few years, Jilly added to her curriculum vitae by serving as an executive producer on the Happy Prince adaptation of her novel Rivals for Disney+. Her suggestions for story and dialogue inevitably layered and enhanced scripts, and her presence on set was a joy for cast and crew alike."
Felicity Blunt 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."
Jilly Cooper's first novel in the Rutshire series, Riders, was published in 1985.
Watch: RTÉ News reports on Jilly Cooper's visit to Dublin in March 1986
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It made the BBC's list of 100 Important English-Language Novels in the Love, Sex, and Romance selection alongside Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Born in Hornchurch, Essex, in 1937, Jilly Cooper 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.
She has said she moved to public relations and was sacked from 22 jobs before ending up in book publishing.
Her adapted works included 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 edition of How to Survive Christmas by Jilly Cooper is due to be published through Transworld in November.
The book, first published in 1986, is described as "an irreverent and witty guide to surviving the festive season".
Britain's Queen Camilla described Jilly Cooper as a "legend" and a "wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so many".
"I join my husband the King in sending our thoughts and sympathies to all her family. And may her hereafter be filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs," she added.
Jilly Cooper'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 London's Southwark Cathedral to celebrate her life, with a separate announcement made in due course.
Source: Press Association
