Rosamunde Pilcher. Farewell to the British lady from the romance novel

Photographs: 1. Highcliffe Castle. 2. Rosamunde Pilcher, by Adam Berry. Getty Images.

Rosamund Pilcher died on February 6 at 94 years. A stroke took one of the great british ladies of the romance novel. A parallel figure in a successful career and transcendence to his compatriot Barbara cartland or to our Corín Tellado. He wrote about 30 novels and the best known was The shell finders. Its success has been renewed thanks to the multiple adaptations distributed by the German ZDF for television.

Rosamund Pilcher

Born in Lent, on the north coast of CornwallIn September 1924, Pilcher began to write while a girl. Published some thirty romance novels over 50 years and with the new century he retired. His first published stories in the 40s were signed with the pseudonym de Jane Fraser. The first with his name was A secret to tell, already in 1955.

Possibly his most famous work is The shell finders, 1987, and sold more than five million copies worldwide. It was the best-selling book in the United States and has been adapted for television, as a miniseries and on stage. I highlight some titles:

• September, 1990
• The empty house, 1973
• Winter Solstice, 2000
• The return, 1995
• Wild thyme, 1978
• Blue bedroom, 1985
• Snow in April, 1972
• The sleeping tiger, 1967
• Deep ties, 1968
• Stormy days, 1975

German TV adaptations

Let's recognize it, we have all seen one in the weekend after-hours. They are ideal for the hour and the moment. Some will have fallen asleep placidly watching the dreamy landscapes of the Cornish coastline with music not suitable for diabetics. Y others of us have fallen in love of those same landscapes and we wanted to continue extending the sweetness of coffee with those stories.

And it turns out that Pilcher's novels and short stories are very popular in Germany, and the ZDF has adapted his works to more than XNUMX films. The success of those romantic stories recreated in such dream environments managed to bring many German tourists to the British coast. And so both the author and the ZDF have been awarded the British Tourism award for their promotion of Cornwall and Devon.

But the fact is that those white narratives, full of affability and arguments as simple as effective, with the triumph of love above all, they can hook you easily. And they look even better with the dressings of picturesque actors who stroll in mansions between the sea and the countryside, with families of rancid ancestry and in fairytale villages. So your success has spread throughout Europe. Here it came from the hand of Antena 3, which began broadcasting them in 2013, and a year later TVE began broadcasting them.