Rosamunde Pilcher was born in Lelant, Cornwall on September 22, 1924. She attended St. Clare's Polwithen and Howell's School Llandaff before going on to Miss Kerr-Sanders' Secretarial College. She began writing for herself when she was seven, and published her first short story when she was only 18.

From 1943 through 1946, Pilcher served with the Women's Naval Service. On December 7, 1946 she married Graham Hope Pilcher, a war hero and jute industry executive who died in March 2009. They moved to Dundee, Scotland, where she still lives today. They had four children.

In 1949, Pilcher's first book, a romance novel, was published by Mills and Boon, under the pseudonym Jane Fraser. She published an additional ten novels under that name. In 1955 she also began writing under her real name with Secret to Tell. By 1965 she had dropped the pseudonym and was signing her own name to all of her novels.

At the beginning writing was a refuge from her daily life. She claims that writing saved her marriage. The real breakthrough in Pilcher's career came in 1987, when she wrote the family saga, The Shell Seekers. Since then her books have made her one of the more successful contemporary female authors.

One of her most famous works, The Shell Seekers, focuses on Penelope Stern Keeling, an elderly British woman who relives her life in flashbacks, and on her relationship with her adult children. Keeling's life was not extraordinary, but it spans "a time of huge importance and change in the world." The novel describes the everyday details of what life during World War II was like for some of those who lived in Britain. The Shell Seekers sold more than five million copies worldwide and was adapted for the stage by Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham.

Her books are especially popular in Germany owing to the fact that the national TV station ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen) has produced more than 70 of her stories for TV. These TV films are some of the most popular programmes on ZDF. Both Pilcher and ZDF programme director Dr. Claus Beling were awarded the British Tourism Award in 2002 for the positive effect the books and the TV versions had on tourism.

Pilcher retired from writing in 2000. Two years later she was created an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).

She has four children and fourteen grandchildren. Her son, Robin Pilcher, is also a novelist.

Rosamunde Pilcher's Coming Home, Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice are all available on DVD in the UK, distributed by Acorn Media UK.

Novels

As Jane Fraser

• The Brown Fields (1951)
• Dangerous Intruder (1951)
• Young Bar (1952)
• A Day Like Spring (1953)
• Dear Tom (1954)
• Bridge of Corvie (1956)
• A Family Affair (1958)
• The Keeper's House (1963)
• A Long Way from Home (1963)

As Rosamunde Pilcher

• A Secret to Tell (1955)
• On My Own (1965)
• Sleeping Tiger (1967)
• Another View (1969)
• The End of Summer (1971)
• Snow in April (1972)
• The Empty House (1973)
• The Day of the Storm (1975)
• Under Gemini (1976)
• Wild Mountain Thyme (1979)
• The Carousel (1982)
• Voices in Summer (1984)
• The Shell Seekers (1988)
• September (1990)
• Coming Home (1995)
• The Key (1996)
• Shadows (1999)
• Winter Solstice (2000)

Omnibus

• The Day of the Storm / The End of the Summer (1979)
• Three Books by Rosamunde Pilcher (1989)
• Rosamunde Pilcher: Under Gemini/the Empty House/the Day of the Storm/Another View/Boxed Set (1990)
• The Rosamunde Pilcher Collection: Wild Mountain Thyme, Empty House and End of the Summer (1991)
• The Shell Seekers / Wild Mountains Thyme / The Day of the Storm (1994)
• Three Complete Novels/September/Voices in Summer/the Carousel (1995)
• The Shell Seekers Collection (1996)
• Rosamunde Pilcher: A New Collection of Three Complete Books (1997)
• Rosamunde Pilcher: A Third Collection of Three Complete Novels (1999)
• Another View / End of Summer (2000)
• End of Summer / September (2003)
• The Blue Bedroom / The White Birds (2005)

Collections

• The Blue Bedroom and Other Stories (1985)
• Rosamunde Pilcher: Wild Mountain Thyme/Sleeping Tiger/the End of Summer/Snow in April/Boxed Set (1990)
• Rosaminde Pilcher: Flowers in the Rain: And Other Stories (1991) Sequel to Blue Bedroom (above) — NEL (New English Library — UK)
• The Blackberry Day: And Other Stories (1992)
• World of Rosamunde Pilcher (1995)
• Christmas with Rosamunde Pilcher (1998)