Dame Jilly Cooper, who died today, finally achieved the acceptance that she’d always deserved. She wrote numerous volumes of witty, clear-sighted journalism, London-based romances like Prudence , Bella and Octavia – and, of course, her ‘Rutshire Chronicles’ series, set in the Cotswolds and featuring the wicked homme-fatale and aristo-sexbomb Rupert Campbell Black. They were books hoovered up as much by adults as by teenage girls and – though they hid the fact – often their younger brothers.

There remained a widespread snobbery about her ‘bonkbuster’ novels – largely, perhaps, because they dealt mainly with the middle and upper classes

Yet there remained a widespread snobbery about her ‘bonkbuster’ novels – largely, perhaps, because they dealt mainly with the middle and upper clas

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