Dame Jilly Cooper, aged 87, has confessed to feeling shocked after rereading her 1988 novel Rivals for the first time in decades. The book, which has been adapted into a highly anticipated Disney+ series streaming from 18 October, is part of a career that has spanned over 40 years of writing about sexual shenanigans among the upper classes.
Cooper, who moved to the Cotswolds in 1982, credits this move with giving her a new social set to write about. It was here that she created the character of Rupert Campbell-Black, the charismatic but misogynistic Tory MP who features in many of her novels. She admits that most of her stories are based on her own experiences, saying: ‘All my heroes are very macho… I just rewrote stories that happened to me.’
The author, who first found success in the late 1960s with a groundbreaking newspaper column about marriage, sex and society, later turned to fiction. Despite initial difficulties getting published, her novel Riders (1985) became a bestseller and saved her Gloucestershire home from being sold. Cooper recalled that her bank manager had dismissed the book as a ‘dirty little novel’, but it sold ‘like an angel’.
Cooper is the final guest on the BBC1 documentary series In My Own Words, airing on 30 September, which will see her reflect on her life and career. She credits her late brother Timothy as the inspiration for many of her leading men, describing him as ‘ravishingly beautiful’ and a magnet for schoolgirls.
Despite her success, Cooper remains modest about her work, describing sex as ‘heaven’ and advising that people should have as much of it as possible—in books and in life.
