Catherine Cookson

Dame Catherine Ann Cookson DBE OBE (June 20, 1906 - June 11, 1998) was a British novelist. Cookson became Britain's most widely read novelist, while remaining a relatively low-profile figure in the world of celebrity novelists. Her writing was inspired by her deprived youth in the North East of England, the setting for her novels.

Born Kate McMullen in the Leam Lane area, she later moved to the Fifteen Streets in East Jarrow, which would become the setting for one of her best known novels. The illegitimate child of an alcoholic mother went on to sell some more than 100 million books, her works being translated into 20 languages. She also used the pseudonyms Catherine Marchant and her maiden name, Katie McMullen.

She left school at 13 and, after domestic service, took a laundry job in the workhouse in South Shields. In 1929 she moved south to run the laundry at Hastings workhouse, saving every penny to buy herself a large Victorian house, taking in gentleman lodgers to supplement her income.

In 1943, she married Tom Cookson, a teacher at Hastings Grammar School, and had three miscarriages late in pregnancy. She was suffering from a rare vascular disease, telangiectasia, which causes bleeding from the nose, fingers and stomach and turns to anaemia. A mental breakdown followed the miscarriages, from which she took a decade to recover.

Her first novel, Kate Hannigan , was published in 1950. She did not like her books being called "romances". They were, she said, historical novels about people and conditions she knew.

Cookson had little to do with the London literary circus. She was always more interested in practising the art of writing. Her research could be uncomfortable - going down a mine, for instance, because her heroine came from a mining area. Having in her youth wanted to write about "above stairs:" in grand houses, she later and successfully concentrated on people ground down by circumstances, taking care to know them well.

She became a multi-millionaire from her books, many of which transferred to stage, film, radio, and, on television, achieved vast ratings. Yet she remained thrifty -- while indulging in considerable, discreet, public generosity. She saved halfpennies from the age of eight, struggling for security in a life spent collecting jugs and beer from the pub. When public lending rights were introduced for authors, she became immediately eligible for the maximum £5,000 a year but gave it away for the benefit of less fortunate writers. She also gave more than £1 million to research into a cure for the illness that had afflicted her.

In 1985 she created the Catherine Cookson Foundation at Newcastle University, and promised it more than £800,000; in gratitude, the university set up a lectureship in haematology. Some £40,000 was given to provide a laser to help treat bleeding disorders. And £50,000 went on a new post in ear, nose and throat studies, with particular application to detection of deafness in children. She had already given £20,000 towards the university's Hatton Gallery and £32,000 to its library. The Foundation continues to make donations to good causes in the UK.

She received the Freedom of the Borough of South Tyneside, today known as 'Catherine Cookson Country' and an 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.

Catherine Cookson was created OBE in 1985 and made a dame in 1993. She died, aged 91, at her home in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, although her novels, many written from her sickbed, continued to be published posthumously. Her husband, Tom, died just three weeks later.

Bibliography

• The Fifteen Streets 1952
• Colour Blind 1953
• Maggie Rowan 1954
• Rooney 1957
• The Menagerie 1958
• Fanny McBride 1959
• Fenwick Houses 1960
• The Garment 1962
• The Blind Miller 1963
• The Wingless Bird 1964
• Hannah Massey 1964
• The Long Corridor 1965
• The Unbaited Trap 1966
• Slinky Jane 1967
• Katie Mulholland 1967
• The Round Tower 1968
• The Husband 1969
• The Nice Bloke 1969
• The Glass Virgin 1969
• The Invitation 1970
• The Dwelling Place 1971
• Feathers in the Fire 1971
• Pure as the Lily 1972
• The Invisible Cord 1975
• The Gambling Man 1975
• The Tide of Life 1976
• The Girl 1977
• The Cinder Path 1978
• The Man Who Cried 1979
• The Whip 1983
• The Black Velvet Gown 1984
• A Dinner of Herbs 1985
• The Bannaman Legacy 1985
• The Moth 1986
• The Parson's Daughter 1987
• The Harrogate Secret 1988
• The Cultured Handmaiden 1988
• The Black Candle 1989
• The Gillyvors 1990
• My Beloved Son 1991
• The Rag Nymph 1991
• The House of Women 1992
• The Maltese Angel 1992
• The Golden Straw 1993
• The Forester Girl 1993
• The Year of the Virgins 1993
• The Tinker's Girl 1995
• Justice Is a Woman 1995
• The Bonnie Dawn 1996
• The Obsession 1997
• The Upstart 1998
• The Blind Years 1998
• Riley 1998
• The Desert Crop 1999
• The Thursday Friend 1999
• My Land of the North 1999
• Desert Crop 1999
• A House Divided 2000
• Rosie of the River 2000
• Silent Lady 2002

The Hamilton series

• Hamilton 1983
• Goodbye Hamilton 1984
• Harold 1985

The Kate Hannigan series

• Kate Hannigan 1950
• Kate Hannigan's Girl 2001

The Tilly Trotter trilogy

• Tilly Trotter 1980
• Tilly Trotter Wed 1981
• Tilly Trotter Widowed 1982

The Mallen trilogy

• The Mallen Girl 1973
• The Mallen Streak 1973
• The Mallen Litter 1974

The Bill Bailey trilogy

• Bill Bailey 1986
• Bill Bailey's Lot 1987
• Bill Bailey's Daughter 1988

The Mary Ann stories

• 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

Children's stories

• Matty Doolin 1965
• Joe and the Gladiator 1968
• The Nipper 1970
• Blue Baccy 1972
• Our John Willy 1974
• Mrs Flannagan's Trumpet 1976
• Go Tell It to Mrs Golightly 1977
• Lanky Jones 1981
• Nancy Nutall and the Mongrel 1982

Autobiographies

• Our Kate 1969
• Catherine Cookson County 1986
• Let Me Make Myself Plain 1988

Written as Catherine Marchant

• The Slow Awakening 1976
• Miss Martha Mary Crawford 1975
• The Iron Facade 1965
• The Fen Tiger 1963

Written as Katie McMullen

• Heritage of Folly 1962
• House of Men 1963