British
writer who published over 90 highly popular novels
which have been translated into twenty languages,
among others into Finnish (over 30). In the 1990s
Cookson's books have been sold 90 million copies.
Especially famous Cookson became for her family
sagas set against the backdrop of England in the
19th century. She wrote under the pseudonym Catherine
Marchant, and produced three different series
of books: the Bill Bailey series, Mary Ann series,
and the Mallen series.
Catherine Cookson
was born in Tyne Dock, Co. Durham, an industrial
region in the northeast of England. Unlike so
many leading writers, she started life with many
disadvantages. She was born illegitimate. Her
mother was poverty-stricken, at times an alcoholic
and occasionally violent. Cookson had only the
minimum of education, and from the age of thirteen
she suffered from hereditary haemorrhagic telangiectasia.
For many years Cookson believed that she had been
abandoned as a baby and that her mother was actually
her older sister.
From the early
age Cookson was determined to become a writer.
She was an avid reader and wrote her first short
story, THE WILD IRISH GIRL, when she was eleven,
and sent it off to the South Shields Gazette,
which returned it after three days. At the age
of thirteen Cookson left school. She began working
as a maid in the houses of the rich and powerful,
witnessing the great class barrier inside the
wealthy society. From 1924 to 1929 she worked
in a laundry and saved money to establish an apartment
hotel in Hastings. One of the tenants was schoolmaster
Tom Cookson, whom she married in 1940 at the age
of 34. After several miscarriages she fell in
depression and started to write to recover. She
joined the local writers' group for encouragement,
and changed from play writing to short stories.
Cookson's first book, KATE HANNIGAN (1950), was
partly autobiographical. Her neighbours tried
to stop its publication because Cookson dared
in the first pages write detailed about a baby
being born. In the story Kate, a working-class
girl, becomes pregnant by an upper-middle-class
man. The child is brought up by Kate's parents
and she believes them to be her real parents,
and Kate to be her sister.
COLOUR BLIND (1953)
was a story of a woman who marries a black man.
Later their daughter suffers at the hands of classmates
and a bitter uncle. The background is realistic,
and offers an understanding picture of the British
working class. In this works as in the following
books Cookson dealt with such social issues as
class tensions and unemployment, among them THE
BLACK CANDLE (1989), set in the 19th-century and
depicting a clash between two families.
 Her
first sixteen books Cookson wrote longhand, but
started then to use a tape recorder, acting the
parts of the characters she is writing about.
Her husband worked as her private secretary and
aided in grammar and spelling - Cookson's dialect
was so strong that many outsiders had difficulties
to understand what she said. In 1968 her novel
THE ROUND TOWER won an award as the best regional
novel of the year.
Many of Cookson's
novels concern the poverty in the North East of
England, and are set in mines and shipyards, or
the farms and surrounding countryside in various
periods from the nineteenth century onwards. The
historical background is generally carefully researched.
She also used her own experiences as material
and recollections of her family and friends. Several
novels are serialized, tracing events in the life
of a single character or a family. Mary Ann Shaughnessy,
brave and a warm-hearted heroine, appears in many
books. Her other major series are The Mallen
Family, Tilly Trotter, Hamilton,
and Bill Bailey. Cookson's autobiography
OUR KATE, was published in 1969.
Usually Cookson's
characters cross the class barrier by the means
of education. Tilly Trotter is taught to read
and write by the parson's daughter and Kate Hannigan
is educated by a kindly employer. The local villagers
view Tilly as a witch, and during the story she
moves up and down the social scale.
The trilogy dealing
the Mallen family saga began with THE MALLEN STREAK
(1973), and continued with THE MALLEN GIRL (1974),
and THE MALLEN LOT (1974). The story was set in
the 19th-century Northumberland, and depicted
the affairs of the family against the background
of hidden sins of the past.
Cookson received
the Freedom of the Borough of South Shields, and
honorary degree from the university of Newcastle,
and the Royal Society of Literature's award for
the Best Regional Novel of the Year. The Variety
Club of Great Britain named her Writer of the
Year, and she was voted Personality of The North-East.
In 1933 Cookson was made dame. She died shortly
before her ninety-second birthday, on June 11,
1998, in her home near Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Posthumously
published KATE HANNIGAN'S GIRL (1999) continues
the story of her first novel.
Further information:
Now read on... by Mandy Hicken and Ray Prytherch
(1996); Contemporary Popular Writers, ed. by
David Mote (1997); Catherine Cookson DBE, OBE
in Bestsellers: Top Writers Tell How by Richard
Joseph (1997); Catherine Cookson Country; in
Newcastle the Ocean Road Museum and Art Gallery
in South Shields has a reconstruction of William
Black Street, where Catherine Cookson grew up.
- Note: A third of all fiction borrowed from
public libraries in 1988 in the UK was by Catherine
Cookson. In 1997 nine of her works were on the
list of ten most borrowed books.
Selected works:
Mary Ann Shaughnessy
series
| A GRAND MAN,
1954 |
| THE LORD AND
MARY ANN, 1956 |
| THE DEVIL
AND MARY ANN, 1958 |
| LOVE AND MARY
ANN, 1961 |
| LIFE AND MARY
ANN, 1962 |
| MARRIAGE AND
MARY ANN, 1964 |
| MARY ANN'S
ANGELS, 1965 |
| MARY ANN AND
BILL, 1967 |
The Mallen Family
- televisin series The Mallens (1978-80)
| THE MALLEN
STREAK, 1973 - television series in 1973 |
| THE MALLEN
GIRL, 1973 |
| THE MALLEN
LITTER, 1974 |
Tilly Trotter
| TILLY TROTTER,
1980 |
| TRILLY TROTTER
WED, 1981 |
| TILLY TROTTER
WIDOWED, 1982 Hamilton |
| HAMILTON,
1983 |
| GOODBYE HAMILTON,
1984 |
| HAROLD, 1985
|
| THE MALLEN
STREAK, 1973 |
| THE MALLEN
GIRL, 1973 |
| THE MALLEN
LITTER, 1974 |
Bill Bailey
| BILL BAILEY,
1986 |
| BILL BAILEY'S
LOT 1987 |
| BILL BAILEY'S
DAUGHTER, 1988 |
Others
| KATE HANNIGAN,
1950 |
| THE FIFTEEN
STREETS, 1952 - television film 1991 |
| COLOUR BLIND,
1953 |
| MAGGIE ROWAN,
1954 |
| JACQUELINE,1956
(screenplay, with others) |
| ROONEY, 1957
- film 1958 |
| THE MENAGERIE,
1958 |
| FANNY MCBRIDE,1959
|
| FENWICK HOUSES,
1960 |
| THE GARMENT,
1962 |
| HERITAGE OF
FOLLY, 1962 (as Catherine Marchant) |
| THE BLIND
MILLER, 1963 |
| THE FEN TIGER,
1963 (as Catherine Marchant) |
| HOUSE OF MEN,
1963 (as Catherine Marchant) |
| HANNAH MASSEY,
1964 |
| MATTY DOOLIN,
1965 |
| THE LONG CORRIDOR,
1965 |
| THE UNBAITED
TRAP, 1966 |
| KATE MULHOLLAND,
1967 THE ROUND TOWER, 1968 - Vanessa |
| JOE AND THE
GLADIATOR, 1968 |
| OUR KATE,
1969 |
| THE GLASS
VIRGIN, 1969 - television film |
| THE NICE BLOKE,
1969 |
| THE NIPPER,
1970 |
| THE INVITATION,
1970 |
| THE DWELLING
PLACE, 1971 |
| FEATHERS IN
THE FIRE, 1971 |
| PURE AS THE
LILY, 1972 |
| BLUE BACCY,
1972 (as Rose's Fortune in 1988) |
| OUR JOHN WILLIE,
1974 |
| MISS MARTHA
MARY CRAWFORD, 1975 |
| THE INVISIBLE
CORD, 1975 |
| THE GAMBLING
MAN, 1975 |
| THE SLOW AWAKENING,
1976 (as Catherine Marchant) |
| THE IRON FAÇADE,
1976 (as Catherine Marchant) - Rautainen julkisivu
|
| THE TIDE OF
LIFE, 1976 - television film |
| THE GIRL,
1977 - Hannah |
| GO TELL IT
TO THE MRS. GOLIGHLY, 1977 |
| MRS. FLAMAGAN'S
TRUMPET, 1977 |
| THE CINDER
PATH, 1978 - television film |
| THE MAN WHO
CRIED, 1979 THE MALLEN NOVELS, 1979 |
| LANKY JONES,
1981 |
| THE MARY ANN
OMNIBUS, 1981 |
| NANCY NUTALL
AND THE MONGREL, 1982 |
| THE WHIP,
1982 |
| THE BLACK
VELVET GOWN, 1984 - television film 1991 |
| A DINNER OF
HERBS, 1985 |
| THE MOTH,
1986 |
| CATHERINE
COOKSON COUNTRY, 1986 |
| THE PARSON'S
DAUGHTER, 1987 |
| THE CULTURAL
HANDMAIDEN, 1988 |
| LET ME MAKE
MYSELF PLAIN, 1988 |
| THE HARROGATE
SECRET, 1989 |
| THE BLACK
CANDLE, 1989 - film 1991 |
| THE GILLYVORS,
1990 |
| THE WINGLESS
BIRD, 1990 |
| MY BELOVED
SON, 1991 |
| THE RAG NYMPH,
1992 |
| THE HOUSE
OF WOMEN, 1992 |
| THE MALTESE
ANGEL, 1992 |
| THE YEAR OF
THE VIRGINS, 1993 |
| THE GOLDEN
STRAW, 1993 |
| THE OBSESSION,
1994 |
| JUSTICE IS
A WOMAN, 1994 |
| HEROTAGE OF
FOLLY, 1995 |
| TINKER'S GIRL,
1996 |
| THE BONNY
DAWN, 1996 |
| THE OBSESSION,
1997 |
| THE UPSTART,
1998 |
| THE BLIND
YEARS, 1998 |
| KATE HANNIGAN'S
GIRL, 1999
|
|
