Jilly Cooper Books in Order

In Tackle!, Rupert Campbell Black buys struggling lower league side Searston Rovers to please his daughter and her footballer boyfriend, then throws himself into transforming the club’s fortunes, while old friends, new romances and the brutal modern game keep trouble simmering on and off the pitch.

This later collection gathers Cooper’s late 1960s and early 70s newspaper columns about sex, socialising and survival, from rows over housework to marital jealousy and chaotic dinner parties, offering a frank, funny snapshot of middle class marriage at the start of her career.

Back in the world of flat racing, Mount! finds Rupert Campbell Black determined to have his stallion Love Rat crowned leading sire. His quest drags him around the globe, strains his marriage to Taggie and opens the door to fresh temptations, rivalries and family crises on and off the racecourse.

Sweet natured widow Etta Bancroft rescues a battered, one eyed filly she calls Mrs Wilkinson, then joins a village syndicate to race her. The novel follows the horse’s rise through point to points and big jump meetings, and the parallel tangle of love, loyalty and ambition among Etta’s new friends.

In Wicked!, ambitious comprehensive head Janna Curtis reluctantly teams up with arrogant Bagley Hall headmaster Hengist Brett Taylor to save her underfunded school by sharing facilities. As posh and state pupils collide, friendships, romances and feuds erupt on playing fields, in staff rooms and backstage at a joint school play.

Pandora centres on a supposedly lost Raphael painting stolen during the Second World War, then hung for decades in a country house bedroom. When it disappears again, the obsessive Belvedon family, a glamorous impostor and sharp eyed dealers are pulled into a long running battle over art, money and desire.

Part bonkbuster, part whodunnit, Score! brings cast and crew to Rannaldini’s gothic abbey to film Verdi’s Don Carlos. As jealousies, affairs and artistic tantrums mount, the tyrannical conductor is murdered, and it falls to those around him to untangle both the crime and their own messy lives.

Set in the classical music world, Appassionata follows star violinist Abigail Rosen after a suicide attempt forces her to reinvent herself as a conductor with a struggling provincial orchestra, where professional rivalries, backstage affairs and the sinister presence of maestro Roberto Rannaldini complicate every rehearsal.

Drawn from a decade of diaries, The Common Years records Cooper’s life beside Putney Common, as she walks her beloved dogs, wrangles small children, gossips about neighbours and watches the seasons change, creating an affectionate, sometimes spiky portrait of a corner of southwest London.

Although best known as an actor, Joanna Lumley here presents an illustrated history of wartime romance, from the First World War to the Gulf, using letters, photos and memorabilia, with Jilly Cooper supplying a warm, knowing foreword on love and separation in wartime.

Lysander Hawkley has looks, charm and no money, until a friend suggests he hire himself out to neglected wives who want to jolt their straying husbands. His new career creates havoc across Rutshire, tangling him with powerful men, vulnerable women and his own feelings.

This satirical country house novella, inspired by Sue Macartney Snape’s paintings, follows plain but kind Araminta Atherstone as suitors circle her inheritance, from grasping cousin Piggy to dashing gambler Bounder Cartwright, with Ascot races, Boxing Day secrets and a very uncertain wedding day.

In this companion to her earlier Men and Super Men, Cooper turns her beady eye on women, from socialites and career girls to grandmothers and schoolgirls, using broad humour and sharp detail to expose the pressures and pleasures of being female in late twentieth century Britain.

This later edition of Intelligent and Loyal celebrates mongrel dogs with the same mix of reader anecdotes, photographs and Cooper’s amused commentary, grouping crossbreeds into playful categories and arguing that mixed heritage pets often make the most charming companions.

Jilly Cooper's first book, a candid, funny guide to married life from a young wife's point of view, mixing irreverent advice, cautionary tales and everyday disasters to ask what really helps a relationship survive beyond the honeymoon phase.

In Polo, moody, magnetic player Ricky France Lynch tries to rebuild his life and career after tragedy, while difficult teenage horsewoman Perdita MacLeod claws her way into the high stakes world of international polo, tangling with rock stars, tycoons and the Campbell Black clan.

Subtitled The Best of Her Satire and Humour, Angels Rush In is a bumper sampler of Cooper’s non fiction, drawing on earlier books about marriage, work, dogs, class and Christmas to give new readers an easy way into her comic essays.

Set in the mid 1980s, Rivals drops Rupert Campbell Black into the ruthless world of a regional television franchise, where charismatic interviewer Declan O’Hara, scheming boss Tony Baddingham and powerhouse producer Cameron Cook battle over ratings, power and each other.

A partner to How to Stay Married, this snappy manual skewers office life, from nightmare bosses and boring meetings to office romances and commuter misery, offering wry advice on how to keep both your job and your sense of humour.

Turn Right at the Spotted Dog collects Cooper’s Mail on Sunday features about moving from London to the countryside, full of tales about jury service, middle age, hunt balls and village life, as well as portraits of politicians, sportsmen and minor royals.

A comic handbook for the festive season, this book follows the hapless O’Aga family through shopping, cooking, family rows and hangovers, offering tongue in cheek tips on everything from coping with in laws to rescuing a burnt turkey.

Written with her husband Leo, Horse Mania! is a short non fiction celebration of horses and the people who adore them, aimed at equally horse mad readers who enjoy anecdotes, curiosities and affectionate jokes about life lived from the saddle or stable yard.

The first Rutshire Chronicle plunges into the international show jumping circuit, following swaggering aristocrat Rupert Campbell Black and self made rider Jake Lovell as their old school feud spills into the ring, their marriages and a bid for Olympic glory.

In this companion to their rugby book, Leo and Jilly Cooper chat through the lore of cricket, sketching players, positions and peculiar rituals so that even newcomers can follow a test match, village game or Sunday league fixture with more confidence.

In Little Mabel Saves The Day, disaster looms for the humans who once rejected her, and the irrepressible mongrel must summon her courage, chaos and street smarts to rescue the situation, proving again that small dogs can have very big hearts.

Created with photographer Patrick Lichfield, this illustrated travel book pairs Cooper’s lively commentary with glamorous images, turning one long journey built around the title’s desert landmark into a witty, escapist tour of sun baked roads and stylish stopovers.

Written with her husband Leo, this short book explains the basics of rugby, from positions and rules to famous matches, with plenty of gossip and jokes, making the sport’s scrums, line outs and club rivalries less intimidating to casual fans.

This history of animals in wartime tells the stories of horses, mules, dogs, pigeons and more, tracing how they carried messages, hauled guns and saved lives, while also quietly asking what humanity owes the creatures it sends into danger.

In Little Mabel Wins, the scruffy heroine finds herself thrust into the world of competitions, where pedigree dogs and posh owners look down on her until an unexpected triumph proves that pluck, loyalty and a good nose can matter more than perfect breeding.

Jolly Marsupial gathers Cooper’s travel journalism from her tour of Australia in the early 1980s, mixing sharp snapshots of social rituals and outback characters with the usual run of parties, sporting fixtures, hotel mishaps and reflections on Britishness abroad.

Beyond Bartlett is a collection of quotations by and about women, assembled as a female centred counterpart to traditional quotation books, highlighting how women have written, joked and argued about everything from politics and work to cooking and romance.

In this anthology Cooper collects prose and poetry about British courtship and passion, from sighing Victorians to modern flirts, creating a scrapbook of how people in one small, emotionally reserved country talk, write and dream about love.

The original edition of the Lisa and Co collection, Love and Other Heartaches brings together Jilly Cooper’s early romantic short fiction, where secretaries, models and students stumble through crushes, affairs and break ups on their way toward slightly wiser futures.

Little Mabel’s Great Escape sees the plucky mongrel sent to grim kennels, where she and her dustbin loving father must plot a breakout and outwit officious humans, delivering gentle jokes about class and kindness along the way.

Lisa and Co gathers together fourteen romantic short stories first written for magazines, most featuring spirited heroines who fall in and out of love in offices, flats and country houses, with Cooper’s trademark mix of mischief, heartbreak and happy endings.

Subtitled A Celebration of the Mongrel, this non fiction book draws on readers’ letters, photographs and Cooper’s own experiences to honour mixed breed dogs, sketching a humorous “breed chart” for mongrels and telling dozens of funny, touching canine stories.

Class: A View from Middle England is Cooper’s witty tour of the British class system, following fictional families from aristocrats to “definitely disgusting” couples, and using food, accents, clothes and habits to explore how people signal status without quite admitting they care.

An anthology of women’s writings and sayings, this quotation collection ranges from queens and novelists to comedians and campaigners, arranging their sharpest lines by theme to showcase both the sweetness and bite of women’s voices across history.

Supercooper offers another selection of Cooper’s humorous pieces, charting the small victories and disasters of family life, parties, travel and social climbing, written in the breezy, confiding tone that made her one of Britain’s best known columnists.

The first Little Mabel picture book follows an unwanted mongrel puppy and her dustbin obsessed street dog father as they muddle through scrapes, snubs and surprises on the way to finding a place, and people, to call their own.

In the Lake District, romantic idealist Prudence spends a fraught weekend with the complicated Mulholland brothers, including the barrister she thinks she loves and the television producer she absolutely should not. Flirtations, jealousies and family drama collide in a very 1970s comedy of eros.

Vicar’s daughter and shy librarian Imogen Brocklehurst escapes her Yorkshire village for a Riviera holiday with celebrity tennis star Nicky Beresford, only to discover that sunshine, glamour and new friends can make her question who, and what, she truly wants.

Superjilly collects another year’s worth of Cooper’s journalism, packed with anecdotes about house parties, hangovers, dogs, sport and domestic mishaps, offering a breezy snapshot of upper middle class life just before her move into longer fiction.

Spoilt, beautiful Octavia flees a disastrous love affair only to find herself stuck on a narrowboat holiday with down to earth businessman Gareth Llewellyn. Their sparring cruise along the canals slowly softens into attraction, testing whether either of them can really change.

A tongue in cheek companion to her columns, this book riffs on male and female types in 1970s Britain, poking fun at husbands, bachelors, career girls and earth mothers while gently skewering the myths each sex believes about the other.

Harriet falls pregnant at university and, abandoned by her boyfriend, retreats to Yorkshire as nanny to charismatic screenwriter Cory Erskine. Looking after his children, she slowly rebuilds her life and must choose between old loyalties and a new, unexpected love.

Actress Bella Parkinson is dazzled when wealthy Rupert Henriques sweeps her off her feet, but meeting his complicated family and glamorous friends makes her question whether money and security are worth the cost to her independence, career and heart.

Jolly Superlative brings together more of Cooper’s journalism, mostly from the Sunday papers, in which she tackles everything from telephones to teenagers with a light, pun filled style that still hides a sharp eye for social detail.

After a whirlwind affair, Emily marries charismatic artist Rory Balniel and moves to his isolated Scottish island home, where eccentric in laws, old lovers and secrets quickly turn romance into turmoil and force her to decide what love should really look like.

This follow up volume offers another batch of Cooper’s Sunday pieces, ranging from Eton and Glyndebourne to bingo halls and Moscow trips, with sharply observed sketches of social climbing, bad holidays and the small absurdities of everyday life.

A collection of her early newspaper columns, Jolly Super gathers forty brief pieces on subjects like marriage, sport, parties and pets, capturing Cooper’s quick wit and slightly chaotic take on middle class English life in the early 1970s.