Jilly Cooper

Dame Jilly Cooper, DBE (née Sallitt, born 21 February 1937), is an English novelist and journalist. She was formerly employed by The Sunday Times Magazine (1969–1982) and The Mail on Sunday (1982–1987) newspapers and (before turning to romantic fiction) wrote non-fiction books. Her first novel appeared in 1975 and she is best known for her Rutshire Chronicles series.

Quotes

• [On her novels] I know they are frivolous imperfect But people love them — you should see the letters I get! Maybe one day I will write something more serious but I don’t want to come across like a ghastly actor who wants to play Hamlet. Basically my aim in life is to add to the sum of human happiness My dear is that pompous hmmm? Darling am I being boring?
  • Interviewed by Jan Moir "Looking for clues" The Daily Telegraph (1 May 1999), p. 36

• I saw this bright orange flash and thought this is it, my number has come up. There was a man above me who was talking about his wife, saying "I love you, Ellen, I love you".
  The train caved over and there was this terrific crash. It was only after we climbed out that we realised the full magnitude of what had happened - there were bodies, trains turned over, massive smoke and flames. I think all you think about at the time is "get me out of here". I was very lucky really - my carriage was the last but one on the train and although it turned over, people did not seem too bad.
  • As a passenger involved in the Ladbroke Grove rail crash in October 1999, as cited in "Reaction to the crash" The Guardian (5 October 1999)
  • In the accident, 31 people were killed and 417 injured. It was, one of the worst train accidents in Britain during the 20th Century.

• [On meeting the editor of The Sunday Times magazine at a dinner party in 1969.] I told him about being a young wife: screwing all night, then going to work, shopping, doing the housework, doing one's husband's dinner, then screwing all night again.
• [In her novel, Score, a male character is murdered while sexually aroused.] I rang Stroud police to ask whether the male member stays up at the point of death. They told me it definitely does.
  • Interviewed by Helena De Bertodano "How Jilly stays on top" The Telegraph (30 April 2002)
  • After a commission to write an article, she was taken on by Harold Evans, then editor of The Sunday Times, and became a regular contributor.

• [On the absence of condoms in her sex scenes.] I can't do that. When do you stop to put it on? They're awful. You see, because I never had babies [her two children are adopted], I never had to worry about all that. Actually, that's not true. I did, because I didn't know [that she couldn't have children]. I wish I had known. God, I'd have had fun. But you were absolutely terrified of getting pregnant. I was too early for the pill. I had a dutch cap. They were terrible. It used to fly across the room. I left it behind when I went on honeymoon. My mother had to send it on. I was never very organised.
• The male is a domestic animal which, if treated with firmness, can be trained to do most things.
  • Interviewed by Rachel Cooke in "Jilly's japes" The Observer (30 August 2006).

• "They are unbelievable the upper classes, aren't they? They just have to screw. They've always been like that. I suppose it has changed a bit today as they don’t want to get whatsitnamed." (She means #MeToo’d.)
• "I'm quite depressed about sex at the moment," she says dolefully. "I don't think people are having nearly so much fun. And everywhere you go, people are marrying their own sex, aren't they?"
• "This woke thing is awful. Have you ever been woked? You put a hand on somebody's shoulder and you're assaulting them. In the old days if someone was awful to you you'd tell them to eff off and that would be that. Still, I had some horrors in my time."
  • Interviewed by Josh Glancy, as cited in "Jilly Cooper: 'Upper classes are unbelievable, they just love sex'", The Sunday Times (5 November 2023)

About Cooper

• There's hard porn, soft porn and Jilly Cooper. Not that Mrs Cooper's latest little nonsense would get any Portnoy award, but I do worry about the influence on young minds of this peculiar combination of romantic fantasy and permissiveness (Barbara Cartland without the iron knickers). Fired by such goings-on as are chronicled in Octavia, heaven knows what the precociously pubescent will get up to.
  • Janice Elliott "An American Adrift" The Sunday Telegraph (31 July 1977) p. 10
  • From a review of new novels. Cartland's heroines were known for their chastity.