SPAIN’S most prolific and widely-read author has died in hospital just days before her 82nd birthday.

Corín Tellado was born in Asturias on April 25, 1927, and has published more than 4,000 novels.

Considered to be the most-read author in Spain after Cervantes, Tellado was writing a book a week in her heyday.

Her style has been compared to that of Mills & Boon, mainly involving easy-reading romance.

She appeared in the Guinness Book of Records in 1994, and has sold over 400 million copies of her books.

Lately she has been unable to type her own novels, but dictated them to her daughter-in-law.

She finished her last short story, which was commissioned by the magazine Vanidades, on Wednesday, and died yesterday.

Tellado has been in dialysis since 1995 as a result of serious kidney problems.

But her death is thought to have been as a result of a heart attack or stroke that caused her to suffer a fall as she got out of bed at 07.30hrs.