Madeleine Wickham, known worldwide under her pen name Sophie Kinsella and celebrated as the queen of romantic comedy, has died at the age of 55. Her passing comes 18 months after she revealed her diagnosis of glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer.
Wickham wrote more than 30 books for adults, teenagers and children, with global sales exceeding 45 million copies. Many readers came to know her through the bestselling novel Confessions of a Shopaholic, which became a cultural phenomenon.
In April 2024, Wickham announced publicly that she had been diagnosed with brain cancer at the end of 2022. She underwent surgery followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy in an attempt to treat the illness.
Born in London in 1969, Wickham initially studied music at New College Oxford before switching to Philosophy Politics and Economics. After graduating, she worked as a financial journalist, although she later admitted she did not enjoy the job. During her long daily commute, she read novels by authors like Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope, which inspired her to try writing fiction herself.
At the age of 24, she wrote her first novel, The Tennis Party, which followed a group of friends attending a weekend tournament. She told the Guardian in 2012 that she was determined not to write an autobiographical debut. Instead, she created a cast that included older characters and different perspectives to prove her range as a writer.
The Tennis Party became the first of seven novels published under her real name between 1995 and 2001. These included Cocktails for Three, The Wedding Girl, Sleeping Arrangements and The Gatecrasher. Sleeping Arrangements was later adapted into a musical by Chris Burgess.
Wickham often said the books under her real name were different from her later Sophie Kinsella novels. They were slightly darker and more serious, focusing on ensembles of interconnected characters rather than a single leading heroine.
She submitted the manuscript for her first Sophie Kinsella novel, The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, without telling publishers who she was. Released in 2000, the book, also known internationally as Confessions of a Shopaholic, became the first in a massively successful series. The story follows Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist with a compulsive love for shopping. Wickham said she had noticed that shopping had become a national obsession, yet no one had written a novel exploring it.
The first two Shopaholic books, including Shopaholic Abroad, were adapted into a feature film titled Confessions of a Shopaholic. The movie was directed by PJ Hogan and starred Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy, premiering in 2009.
From 2003 onward, Wickham also wrote popular standalone novels as Sophie Kinsella. These included Can You Keep a Secret, The Undomestic Goddess and Remember Me. Her most recent standalone novel, The Burnout, was published in 2023. She said she wrote it after experiencing burnout personally and seeing similar struggles around her. The book follows Sasha, who returns to a beloved childhood beach resort to recover, only to find the hotel deteriorated and the beach shared with a grumpy character named Finn.
In her cancer announcement, Wickham said the warm reception to The Burnout uplifted her during a difficult period. Messages of support poured in from Isla Fisher, who portrayed Becky in the film adaptation, as well as from bestselling authors Jojo Moyes and Gillian McAllister.
Wickham’s novels have often been labeled chick lit because of their romantic and comedic plots. However, she explained that she viewed chick lit as contemporary funny fiction written in the third person. She believed women were multi layered, saying that a character could be intelligent, clumsy, stylish and chaotic all at once.
Beyond her adult fiction, Wickham also created the children’s series Mummy Fairy and Me, published between 2018 and 2020. In 2015, she wrote the young adult novel Finding Audrey, which explores the struggles of a teenage girl with social anxiety.
Wickham met her future husband, Henry Wickham, on her first night at Oxford University and married him at the age of 21. She is survived by her husband and their five children.
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