Catherine Cookson: The Biography (Charnwood Library) [Large Print] [Hardcover]

"Write about what you know". Catherine Cookson was a phenomenon in her own lifetime. Her illegitimate origins in the Newcastle slums of the early 1900s gave no indication that she would, at the time of her death in 1998, be a bestselling novelist, known to millions as "Our Kate". Cookson worked her way out of her poverty-ridden childhood, and exorcised its worst horrors through her increasingly successful writing. Her astonishingly prodigious output--97 novels in all--was matched by her philanthropic generosity--as her wealth grew, she ploughed resources back into the impoverished community from which she came. Her roots were inextricably linked with the north-east of England. Kathleen Jones has drawn on previously unpublished excerpts from Cookson's own autobiography, plus lengthy tape recordings and interviews with close friends to reveal the deeply troubled woman behind the remarkable success story. Cookson's breakdown and series of miscarriages have been well-documented, but Jones sheds new light on the author's disturbed relationship with her mother, and the intense friendship with Nan Smith which threatened her marriage. Above all, Jones returns to the works, so much more than mass-market fiction, which overcame the scoffing of literary prejudice to earn Cookson the title of " the greatest historical novelist of all time." --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

'Kathleen Jones's biography displays all the Cookson virtues' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'A dramatic and unsettling story, and Jones tells it with quiet tact' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'A tender, perceptive, cleareyed biography' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

One of the most popular writers of the 20th century, Catherine Cookson's story is as dramatic as any of her novels. Born in 1906, the illegitimate daughter of a domestic servant, she was brought up in Tyneside in one of the poorest communities of the western world. Her mother once begged barefoot from door to door and they lived in constant fear of the workhouse. But Catherine was determined to escape her situation and did so with enormous courage and energy, making her her way out of the slums of her childhood. After a tragic series of stillbirths and miscarriages, she attempted to "write it all out". All of her 97 novels are still in print. But the damage she suffered as a child left Cookson vulnerable and her health precarious. In this biography, Kathleen Jones has delved into early drafts of Cookson's own autobiography, and has also used as background the hours of privately taped conversation in which Cookson discusses much that she chose to keep secret in her own lifetime: her tortured feelings for her mother, her own mental torment and terrors, and her intense and devastating relationship with Nan Smith, who almost succeeded in wrecking Catherine's marriage. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Kathleen Jones was born in 1947 and brought up in the Lake District where she now lives. She spent eleven years in Africa and the Middle East, before returning to England and writing her first biography in 1991. Other biographies followed and she has written short fiction, journalism and a collection of poetry. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.