Author Mary Wesley - whose first novel was published at the age of 70 - has died aged 90, it was confirmed today.

Ms Wesley died yesterday at her home in Totnes, Devon. For her readers and admirers, her literary success late in life was an inspiration.

Her first book, Jumping the Queue, about love and sex among the British upper-middle classes, was published in 1983. She is said to have always been baffled when people were surprised at an older author writing frankly about sex.

After her publishing breakthrough at the age of 70, she wrote a dozen novels up until 1990 using an adaptation of her maternal grandmother's surname, Wellesley. Her books were often in the bestseller lists.

Her first major commercial success was the Camomile Lawn, published in 1984, which was based on her wartime experience and was adapted for television.

Tribute was paid to her today by her son, literary agent Tony Eady, who said: "She was someone who started a new wave of writing. She was a deeply feminine woman who wrote about being a woman in a way which had not been done before."

In an interview earlier this year, she said: "I have no patience with people who grow old at 60 just because they are entitled to a bus pass. Sixty should be the time to start something new, not put your feet up." She also said she looked forward "with interest to the mystery of death".

Ms Wesley was born in Englefield Green, Surrey, the youngest of three children of Colonel Harold Mynors Farmar. She studied anthropology and international politics at the London School of Economics in 1930, and was made an honorary fellow there in 1994.

Her funeral will take place at St Mary's Church in Totnes on Friday.