The Queen has paid heartfelt tribute to Dame Jilly Cooper after the novelist's death aged 88 - and wished her an afterlife 'filled with impossibly handsome men and devoted dogs'.
Camilla issued a statement hailing the national treasure author as a 'legend' and a 'wonderfully witty and compassionate friend' after Dame Jilly's family revealed she had died after suffering 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, longtime friends, last saw each other just last month when the author was among the guests at a star-studded literary festival.
Her Majesty said in a statement today: 'I was so saddened to learn of Dame Jilly's death last night.
'Very few writers get to be a legend in their own lifetime but Jilly was one, creating a whole new genre of literature and making it her own through a career that spanned over five decades.
'In person she was a wonderfully witty and compassionate friend to me and so many - and it was a particular pleasure to see her just a few weeks ago at my Queen's Reading Room Festival where she was, as ever, a star of the show.
'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.'
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.'
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'.
The author's agent Felicity Blunt issued a similarly warm tribute, saying Dame Jilly was 'sharply observant and utter fun'.
Dame Jilly Cooper is seen attending the Queen's Reading Room Festival at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire in September 2025
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.
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.'
The author's character Rupert Campbell-Black was reportedly inspired by Andrew Parker Bowles (above)
A new book by Dame Jilly is due to be published through Transworld in November.
How To Survive Christmas is described as 'an irreverent and witty guide to surviving the festive season.'