Author Joanna Trollope dies aged 82

Best-selling author Joanna Trollope has died aged 82, her family has announced.

The writer was affectionately known as the "queen of the Aga saga" because her novels often focused on romance and intrigue in middle England.

In a statement, her daughters Louise and Antonia said their "beloved and inspirational mother" had died "peacefully at her Oxfordshire home" on Thursday.

Trollope's novels include The Rector's Wife, Marrying The Mistress and Daughters in Law.

Trollope's 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.

"Joanna will be mourned by her children, grandchildren, family, her countless friends and - of course - her readers."

Trollope's books have been translated into more than 25 languages, and several have been adapted for television.

Trollope was a writer for more than five decades, and one of the best known novelists in the UK.

She authored 22 contemporary novels including 2013's Sense & Sensibility, the lead title in HarperCollins's Austen Project, as well as 10 historical novels published under the pseudonym Caroline Harvey.

Trollope also occasionally wrote short stories and pieces for magazines, chaired book prizes, authored a 2006 study of women in the British Empire called Britannia's Daughters, and edited a 1993 anthology of rural life, The Country Habit.

She received an OBE in 1996 for services to charity, and was made a CBE in 2019 for services to literature.