Jilly's first book, How To Stay Married, was written in 1969. Since then she has written or helped to compile 39 other books. She has appeared on radio and television, including What's My Line which regularly achieved 14 million viewers. In 1970 she also wrote a TV series entitled It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes Darling , in which Joanna Lumley played a starring role.

Her first big novel, Riders was published in 1985 and went straight to number 1 in the best sellers lists, as did Rivals published in 1988. Polo, which was published in 1991, was the highest selling hardback novel of the year. The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous , which was published in April of 1993 went straight into the number 1 position too and remained there for eight weeks.   All of these books have sold well over 1 million copies each in their British Editions.

Riders was her first novel to be adapted for a major two part mini-series for television. It achieved an astounding 9 million viewers for the first episode and 15 million for the second. In March 1997 The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous was shown on ITV to similar audiences.

In April 1996 Jilly Cooper's twelfth novel Appasionata was published by Bantam   Press. It received   acres of press coverage and was a runaway best seller, going straight into the number 1 position on The Sunday Times list - it remained there until 12th May 1996.

In 1998 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British Book Awards.

Jilly Coooper's thirteenth novel SCORE! was published in May 1999 by Bantam Press. It follows on from Appassionata with many of her best loved characters reappearing, including the irrepressible Rupert Campbell-Black and the arch villain Sir Robert Rannaldini. The paperback edition was published in March 2000 and went straight to number 1, selling over 500,000 copies to date.

Animals in War , Jilly Cooper's much loved classic depiction of animals in wartime, was reissued in March 2000 to coincide with the launch of the Animals In War Memorial campaign. Jilly Cooper is one of the patrons of this campaign. A memorial was unveiled in Park Lane in November 2004.

Jilly Cooper's last novel, Pandora, was published in 2002 and was on the bestseller list for 19 weeks. It is set in the dazzling and glitzy international art world with favourite and much-loved characters such as Rupert Campbell-Black making cameo appearances.

The paperback of Pandora, published in 2004, was also a number one bestseller.

Jilly Cooper's books have sold over 11 million copies in the UK alone. Her books have been translated into Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Greek, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Finnish, Hungarian and Lithuanian as well as being published in The United States.

In 2004 Jilly Cooper became a grandmother   when, on January 26th Jago, Patrick was born to daughter Emily and son-in-law Adam Tarrant.   In June 2004 Jilly was awarded the O.B.E for Services to Literature, and in July she received the Variety Club Heart of Yorkshire Award for Services to the Media.

Also in 2004, Tesco readers voted Riders 1 st and Rivals 11 th in their list of all time best beach reading ever. Rivals was also voted 28 th in a list of '50 contemporary essential reads' by visitors to the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival.