Joanna Trollope, the best-selling British author known for her perceptive depictions of household life, passed away at the age of 82. The literary world paid tribute to her as her family reported that she died quietly at her Oxfordshire home on December 11. Her daughters' announcement:"Our beloved and inspirational mother, Joanna Trollope, has died peacefully at her Oxfordshire home on 11th December, aged 82."Joanna Trollope, who was called the "Queen of the Aga Saga" was married twice.Joanna Trollope's first marriage was to a city banker named David Roger William Potter, whom she met while studying at Oxford University. They married in 1966 when she was 22, and he was 21. The couple had two daughters, Louise and Antonia, before divorcing in 1983 after 17 years of marriage. Trollope later expressed that she “would’ve liked masses more children” but did not want to remain in a marriage with infidelity involved.Joanna Trollope then married again in 1985, this time to the television dramatist Ian Curteis, whom she met when she was in her late thirties. She became stepmother to Curteis's two teenage sons through that marriage. The couple lived in a large house in Gloucestershire and, according to friends, were deeply devoted to each other. Curteis encouraged her transition into modern fiction to enable her to write about subjects closer to her own experience.Their marriage ended in 2001 after 13 years. Trollope recalled suffering a "mini-breakdown" during the period when the marriage fell apart, admitting she eventually "put the dogs in the car and left" because she "just needed to get the hell out." Curteis went on to remarry the same year.Decades later, Trollope reflected on both relationships, saying the men she married “grew up in a generation when their expectations were very different,” adding that they sometimes “resented being undermined” by her professional success.After Joanna Trollope's second divorce, she remained single for more than 20 years. In a 2020 interview, she said: “I’ve certainly taken myself off the market, yes. I think many women do. I’m not interested. I don’t need a man for anything.”Joanna Trollope's careerBorn in Gloucestershire in 1943 and a distant relative of Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, she had started writing at night after working in the Foreign Office and as a teacher. She became a full-time author in 1980.As a writer for five decades, the author has written over thirty novels. She started off writing historical romances under the pen name Caroline Harvey before switching to contemporary fiction, which helped establish her as a household figure.The Rector's Wife, which debuted in 1991 and topped bestseller charts for almost a year, surpassing writers like Jeffrey Archer, was her breakthrough hit. Her reputation as a writer of middle-class relationships, generational conflicts, and family turmoil was solidified by later novels such as A Village Affair, Marrying the Mistress, Other People's Children, and Mum & Dad.Despite being called an "Aga saga" author, Trollope rejected the term as "patronizing," claiming that her writing addressed much more complex and harsh emotional realities. She told The Guardian:“Actually, the novels are quite subversive, quite bleak. It’s all rather patronizing isn’t it?”Her works, The Rector's Wife, The Choir, A Village Affair, and Other People's Children, are some of the works that were translated into over 25 languages and sold close to 10 million copies globally. They were also adapted for television. For her contributions to literature, she received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1996 and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2019. She reportedly received an estimated £15 million for contributions to literature from Queen Elizabeth II in addition to a CBE.She is survived by her two daughters, their five children, and her two stepsons, both married with four children between them. Her literary agent said she would be remembered as “one of our most cherished and widely enjoyed novelists,” while fellow writer, Fay Weldon, praised her gift for capturing “the problems of the times.” Weldon said:"Trollope has a gift for putting her finger on the problem of the times."Joanna Trollope's death comes just after the death of fellow British writer, Sophie Kinsella, who passed away at the age of 55 after a long battle with brain cancer. Stay tuned to Soap Central for more information.