New York (CNN) -- Helen Gurley Brown, who created the idea of a modern woman with her book Sex and the Single Girl and was editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine for three decades, has died at age 90, the Hearst Corporation said yesterday.

Gurley Brown died yesterday morning at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after a brief hospitalization, the publisher said.

"Helen was one of the world's most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism -- and beyond," Hearst Chief Executive Frank Bennack said.

It was Gurley Brown who invented today's notion of a modern woman -- one who could have both a successful career and an exciting, satisfying sex life, said Bonnie Fuller, the influential magazine editor who took over at Cosmopolitan when Gurley Brown stepped down in 1997.

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