The Girl from Leam Lane: The Life and Writing of Catherine Cookson

by PiersDudgeon (Author)

• Used

  Illustrated
  2007

  $3.29

  Catherine Cookson was born 100 years ago in a run-down area on the south bank of the Tyne. Forty-four years later her debut novel, Kate Hannigan, established her as a bestselling storyteller of rare talent. But what readers didn't realise was that Kate Hannigan also represented the first step of the author's triumph over a nervous breakdown and a period of confinement in a mental asylum. Still in the throes of her illness, she was transforming her fears out of necessity through her art. Piers Dudgeon was granted exclusive interviews over a 15-year period until Catherine's death in 1998. Now, in the company of her family and others who declined to be interviewed during her lifetime, he sheds new light on the tortured drama of her personal life and her legacy to the nation. This revised biography is a revealing tribute to an enduringly popular writer in her centenary year, and will fascinate her many loyal fans.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.29

  This newly revised biography pieces together the uncensored details of Catherine Cookson's troubled and tempestuous life through a unique combination of previously unreleased material and Catherine's own, personal account. In addition to the original conversations between Catherine and Piers Dudgeon, it includes information contributed by some of those central figures in Catherine's life who, prior to her death, she would not allow to be interviewed. Among the new topics addressed include: Catherine's possible bisexuality and the extent to which it affected her marriage; the contents of her own and her husband's wills and whether the vast sum of money left to the Catherine Cookson Foundation has, in fact, been put to the use that she dictated. It also examines the dramatisation of her books and how this kick-started the careers of actors, such as Sean Bean and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Not only does this updated biography celebrate her memory; it also offers a breadth of perspective and depth of detail never before available to the millions of Catherine Cookson lovers up and down the country.