Sue Townsend was the creator of the British book character, Adrian Mole, sometimes referred to as the "original Bridget Jones."

Sue Townsend, author of the wildly popular “Adrian Mole” book series, died April 10 in Leicester, England after a stroke. She was 68-years-old. Townsend’s “Adrian Mole” series, which began in 1982 with the publication of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 (Avon), followed─in journal-entry form─the travails of a self-indulgent, Bridget Jones–esque adolescent. Townsend continued with the series as Mole matured into adulthood, with books such as The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (Harper Collins, 2003), The True Confessions of Adrian Mole (Penguin, 2003), and Adrian Mole: The Prostate Years (Michael Joseph, 2009). Though many of the novels focus on Adrian’s fairly commonplace concerns—a crush on a fellow classmate, the desire to become a published authors—social and political satire were also big themes with early works taking aim at England under Margaret Thatcher’s rule and later ones taking a satirical look at the Gulf War or unemployment. The books were in high demand, and of Adrian Mole: The Cappacuino Years (Soho, 2000), School Library Journal said, “Townsend's lively prose sparkles, giving life to the myriad trivial events of Adrian's day.”

Sue Townsend leaves behind a legacy of popular books.

Born in 1946 in Leicester, Townsend left school as a teenager and married at age 18. A single parent at 23, she held a number of factory and shop jobs but wrote extensively on her own for almost twenty years before joining a writers group at age 35. Townsend’s first play was Womberang, for which she garnered the Thames Television Playwright Award. Her other works for the theater include The Great Celestial Cow, Ten Tiny Fingers, Nine Tiny Toes, and The Queen and I, in which the British monarchy was abolished, forcing Charles, Diana, and Queen Elizabeth Ito live among commoners. Many of her works used humor and satire to shed light on significant social issues. Townsend suffered from diabetes and later became blind and needed the use of a wheelchair. She is survived by her husband and four children.