Best-selling English writer, Joanne Trollope, has sadly passed away at the age of 82, her family have announced. The author, who also wrote under the pseudonym of Caroline Harvey, penned over 30 novels as well as a non-fiction book, Britannia’s Daughters: Women of the British Empire (1983). In a statement, her daughters Louise and Antonia said their “beloved and inspirational mother” had died “peacefully at her Oxfordshire home” on Thursday (11th December 2025).
Born in Gloucestershire in December 1943, Trollope’s love of books may have first been inspired by her mother, who was a writer and artist herself. Trollope continued to pursue literature through her education, gaining a scholarship to read English at St Hugh’s College, Oxford in 1961.
Trollope worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth Officer, then was employed as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1980. She began writing historical romances under the pseudonym of Caroline Harvey, adopting the first names of her father’s parents, but soon found that: “It was the wrong genre for the time.” Although, her novel Parson Harding’s Daughter did win her the Romantic Novel of the Year Award (1980) from the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA).
Encouraged by her husband Ian Curteis, Trollope next turned her attention to contemporary fiction for which she became best known. The Choir, published in 1987, was her first contemporary novel, and it was later adapted by Curteis, for a five-episode BBC television miniseries in 1995. Her novels A Village Affair and Other People’s Children have also been adapted for television. Trollope’s works explored a range of topics including: different families, adoption, parenting and marital breakdown.
In 2009, she wrote and donated a short story ‘The Piano Man‘ to Oxfam’s Ox-Tales project; which brought together 38 authors in four collections of stories. For her work over more than five decades, she received an OBE in 1996 for services to charity, and was made a CBE in 2019 for services to literature.
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.”
