{"id":106512,"date":"2025-12-12T14:06:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=106512"},"modified":"2025-12-12T14:06:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T14:06:28","slug":"author-joanna-trollope-dies-aged-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=106512","title":{"rendered":"Author Joanna Trollope dies aged 82"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>4 Minute, 12 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
\n

Best-selling author Joanna Trollope has died aged 82, her family has announced.<\/p>\n

The writer was known as the \u201cqueen of the Aga saga\u201d because her novels often focused on romance and intrigue in middle England, although she rejected the tag as \u201cpatronising\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement, her daughters Louise and Antonia said their \u201cbeloved and inspirational mother\u201d had died \u201cpeacefully at her Oxfordshire home\u201d on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Trollope\u2019s novels include The Rector\u2019s Wife, Marrying The Mistress, Second Honeymoon and Daughters in Law.<\/p>\n

Trollope\u2019s literary agent James Gill said in a statement: It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of Joanna Trollope, one of our most cherished, acclaimed and widely enjoyed novelists.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoanna will be mourned by her children, grandchildren, family, her countless friends and \u2013 of course \u2013 her readers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trollope\u2019s books have been translated into more than 25 languages, and several have been adapted for television.<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/figure>\n

Trollope was a writer for more than five decades, and one of the best known novelists in the UK.<\/p>\n

She authored more than 20 contemporary novels including 2013\u2019s Sense & Sensibility, the lead title in HarperCollins\u2019s Austen Project.<\/p>\n

The author also wrote 10 historical novels, which were published under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey.<\/p>\n

Trollope occasionally wrote short stories and pieces for magazines, chaired book prizes, authored a 2006 study of women in the British Empire called Britannia\u2019s Daughters, and edited a 1993 anthology of rural life called The Country Habit.<\/p>\n

She received an OBE in 1996 for services to charity, and was made a CBE in 2019 for services to literature.<\/p>\n

Trollope was born in Gloucestershire, a fifth-generation niece of the English novelist Anthony Trollope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a direct descendent of his, although I\u2019m from the same family, but another branch of it,\u201d she once told the Independent. \u201cI admire him hugely, and take several things he said about writing very much to heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

She read English at Oxford University and worked in the Foreign Office and as a teacher before becoming a full-time author in 1980.<\/p>\n

Her early novels were all written under her pseudonym until the release of her first contemporary novel, the choir, in 1987.<\/p>\n

Several of her later novels were adapted for the screen, including A Village Affair, The Choir, Other People\u2019s Children and The Rector\u2019s Wife.<\/p>\n

She\u00a0told the Writers Write website\u00a0that she preferred to use pen and paper to write her novels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the silence and intimacy and simplicity. I can also, when it\u2019s going really well, write like the wind \u2013 1,000 words an hour,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But the process of writing was \u201cextremely hard\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then, I think anything worthwhile is inevitably going to be hard,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most exciting moment for me is the penultimate chapter \u2013 the end is in sight, and clear, but the activity of the race isn\u2019t quite yet over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Author<\/figure>\n

The description of her books as \u201cAga sagas\u201d caught on, despite only two of Trollope\u2019s novels actually featuring an Aga.<\/p>\n

She later admitted she was \u201cfairly tired of such an inaccurate and patronising tag\u201d, describing it as a \u201cvery unfortunate phrase\u201d that had \u201cdone me a lot of damage\u201d.<\/p>\n

The \u201cAga saga\u201d tag is\u00a0thought to have come form novelist Terence Blacker, but Trollope said: \u201cPeople who are rude about them don\u2019t take into account the amount of research I do, which is swotty and immense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe name itself indicates a provincial cosiness, and is patronising of the readers. A lot of what I write into the books is bleak and challenging but I will be the Queen of the Aga saga to my dying day. It\u2019s jolly annoying, but it is better than being the Queen of Hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trollope\u2019s work tackled a range of topics from affairs, blended families and adoption, to parenting and marital breakdown.<\/p>\n

She also often wrote about remarriage, parenthood and the strains on the so-called \u201csandwich generation\u201d, caring for both their children and their parents.<\/p>\n

In The Soldier\u2019s Wife, she portrayed families struggling to cope with the aftermath of a harrowing Afghanistan tour.<\/p>\n

Fellow novelist Fay Weldon once said Trollope had \u201ca gift for putting her finger on the problem of the times\u201d.<\/p>\n

Trollope said it was \u201ca great honour and an even bigger challenge\u201d to rework Austen\u2019s Sense & Sensibility in 2013.<\/p>\n

But she had previously said that comparisons of her own work with Austen\u2019s \u201cmake me fidget\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a huge gulf between being great and being good. I know exactly which category I fall into and which she falls into,\u201d she told the Independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a good day, I might be good. I think of my writing as contemporary accessible fiction and it really isn\u2019t for me to add the qualifying adjectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a 1994 episode of Desert Island Discs, she again addressed criticisms that her books were trivial, responding: \u201cIt is a grave mistake to think there is more significance in great things than in little things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n \n
\n \n \"Happy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Happy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sad\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sad <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Excited\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Excited <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Sleepy\"\n <\/a>\n
\n Sleepy <\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n \n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Angry\"\n <\/a>\n
Angry<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n \n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \"Surprise\"\n <\/a>\n
Surprise<\/div>\n
\n 0<\/span>\n 0<\/span> %<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\"AuthorBest-selling author Joanna Trollope has died aged 82, her family has announced.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1910,13789,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-joanna-trollope","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=106512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/106513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=106512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=106512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=106512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}