Catherine cookson autobiography

Catherine Cookson by Kathleen Jones

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In 1994, I wrote a letter to Catherine Cookson, explaining that my Mam was a huge fan, and that I wanted to get her something special for her 40th birthday. I asked if it were possible for her to autograph a book for her. I told her about my studies at university, explaining that I was from the North East like her, but having moved to Australia when I was so young, my ties to the North East felt somehow tenuous, and all I knew of it was only from her books. I told her I had only read one or two of hers, but that I had read Gaskell’s North and South. I enclosed a cheque in Australian dollars, which I hoped would cover the cost of the book and the postage back to me in Australia. When I wrote to Catherine Cookson, I had no real idea just how popular she was, just how many books she had sold, and what made her the writer that she became.

Reading this biography gave me something of an insight into who I was writing to. Born as an illegitimate child to an impoverished Catholic family, Catherine Cookson emerged f

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