캐서린 쿡슨(Catherine Cookson, Catherine Marchant)

프로필: 1906년 6월 27일 출생, 1998년 사망. 1993년 영국 왕실로부터 준남작 작위를 받아 Dame Catherine (Ann) Cookson이라고 불림.

British writer who published over 90 highly popular novels which have been translated into twenty languages, among others into Finnish (over 30 works). 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.

"I was a story-teller from the time I could talk, and if I could get an audience, if I could get someone to listen to me... I used to pass the time, telling myself wonderful stories about us living in a nice house with lino on the stairs... one of the best ones I've ever told was about the wee folk, the little green men talking to me." (from Richard Joseph's Bestsellers, 1997)

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 hemorrhage 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. During this period she changed from play writing to short stories. Cookson's first book, KATE HANNIGAN (1950), was partly autobiographical. Her neighbors 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 these early 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. Cookson's autobiography, OUR KATE, was published in 1969. Other autobiographical works include CATHERINE COOKSON COUTRY (1986), LET ME MAKE MYSELF PLAIN (1988), and PLAINER STILL (

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.

"But he had taught her to love, and that was a different thing; he had taught her that the act of love wasn't merely a physical thing, its pleasure being halved without the assistance of the mind. But it was Mr Burgess, this old man breathing his last here now, who had taught her how to use her mind. Right from the beginning he had warned her that once your mind took you below the surface of mundane things, you would never again know real peace because the mind was an adventure, it led you into strange places and was forever asking why, and as the world outside could not give you true answers, you were forever groping and searching through your spirit for the truth." (from Tilly Trotter Wed, 1981)

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. Ofter Cookson's characters are outcasts, as Tilly who is viewed by the local villagers as a witch. During the story, beginning in the Reign of the young Queen Victoria, she moves up and down the social scale. She becomes the mistress of a wealthy man, then the wife of his son. Exceptionally Tilly moves to to the United States, Texas, where Cookson had never visited. As a source she used Comanches by T. R. Fehrenbach (1975), Sue Flanagan's Sam Houston's Texas (1964) and some other books but emphasized: "... I have tried within my capacity to keep to facts, but like most authors of novels I may have resorted now and again to a little licence; so should this be noted by a Texan I beg his forbearance, for after all I am merely a teller of tales." (from the 'Author's Note' in Tilly Trotter Wed, 1981) The series inspired the film Tilly Trotter (1999), directed by Alan Grant and starring Simon Shepard, Carli Norris, Rosemary Leach, and Gavin Abbot.

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 Northhumberland, 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.

For 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 Counrty; 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.

《Mary Ann Shaughnessy》시리즈

1편 《grand man》

2편 《lord and Mary Ann》

3편 《devil and Mary Ann》

4편 《Love and Mary Ann》

5편 《Life and Mary Ann》

6편 《Marriage and Mary Ann》

7편 《Mary Ann's angels》

8편 《Mary Ann and bill》

《Mallen Family》시리즈. 《The Mallens》라는 TV 시리즈로 방영 (1978-80)

1편 《Mallen streak》

2편 《Mallen girl》

3편 《Mallen litter》

《Tilly Trotter》시리즈. 1999년 영화화. 감독 Alan Grint, 제작 Ray Marshall, 시나리오 Ray Marshall

1편 《Tilly Trotter》

2편 《Tilly Trotter wed》

3편 《Tilly Trotter widowed》

《Hamilton》 시리즈

1편 《Hamilton》

2편 《Goodbay Hamilton》

3편 《Harold》

《Bill Bailey》 시리즈

1편 《Bill bailey》

2편 《Bill Bailey's lot》

3편 《Bill Bailey's daughter》

캐서린 쿡슨 작품연표

Bill bailey 1986

Bill Bailey's daughter 1988

Bill Bailey's lot 1987

black candle 1989 영화화(1991)

black velvet gown 1984 TV 영화로 제작(1991)

blind miller 1963

blind years 1998

Blue Baccy 1972

bonny dawn 1996

Catherine Cookson country 1986

cinder path 1978 TV 영화로 제작

Colour blind 1953

cultural handmaiden 1988

devil and Mary Ann 1958

dinner of herbs 1985

dwelling place 1971

Fanny Mcbride 1959

Feathers in the fire 1971

Fenwick houses 1960

fifteen streets 1952 TV영화로 제작(1991)

gambling man 1975

garment 1962

gillyvors 1990

girl 1977

glass virgin 1969 영화로 제작

Go tell it to the Mrs. Golighly 1977

golden straw 1993

Goodbay Hamilton 1984

grand man 1954

Hamilton 1983

Hannah Massey 1964

Harold 1985

harrogate secret 1989

house of women 1992

invisible cord 1975

invitation 1970

Jacqueline 1956 (screenplay, with others)

Joe and the gladiator 1968

Justice is a woman 1994

Kate Hannigan 1950

Kate Hannigan's girl 1999 - Annie - aitinsa tytar, suom. Satu Leveelahti

Kate Mulholland 1967

Lanky Jones 1981

Let me make myself plain 1988

Life and Mary Ann 1962

long corridor 1965

lord and Mary Ann 1956

Love and Mary Ann 1961

Maggie Rowan 1954

Mallen girl 1973

Mallen litter 1974

mallen novels 1979

Mallen streak 1973

maltese angel 1992

man who cried 1979

Marriage and Mary Ann 1964

Mary Ann and bill 1967

Mary Ann omnibus 1981

Mary Ann's angels 1965

Matty Doolin 1965

menagerie 1958

Miss Martha Mary Crawford 1975

moth 1986 천사들의 정원 (현대문화센타, 1996)

솜씨 좋은 목수 로버트 브래들리, 아버지의 죽음 이후 숙부인 존의 집으로 옮겨 가지만 사촌동생 카리에의 일로 그와 결별한 채 집을 떠난다.

운명의 또다른 자락은 몰락해 가는 솔만 가(家)로 그를 이끌어 가는데…….

솔만의 나방이라 불리우는 막내딸 밀리에와의 만남, 그리고 그녀의 언니 아그네스 솔만.

그의 사려 깊음과 누구도 흉내낼 수 없는 여유는 순결한 영혼을 가진 밀리에와 어머니 대신 그녀를 돌보아온 메마르고 상처받은 아그네스의 가슴에 잔잔한 파문을 일으킨다.

언제부터인지 모르게 로버트에게 이끌리기 시작한 아그네스는 애써 자신의 감정을 숨기고 도도한 귀족의 자존심을 지키려 하지만 점점 깊어가는 사랑으로 가슴 아파한다.

로버트의 굽힐 줄 모르는 신념은 아그네스의 마음을 움직이고 마침내 서로의 사랑을 받아들일 준비가 되었지만, 귀족과 하인이라는 신분의 벽은 그들의 사랑을 막아서고 뜻하지 않은 전쟁은 로버트의 운명을 더욱 험난하게 몰아 가는데…….

Mrs. Flamagan's trumpet 1977

My beloved son 1991

Nancy Nutall and the mongrel 1982

nice bloke 1969

nipper 1970

obsession 1994

obsession 1997

Our John Willie 1974

Our Kate 1969

parson's daughter 1987

Plainer still : A new personal anthology 1995

Pure as the lily 1972

rag nymph 1992

Rooney 1957 영화로 제작(1958)

Rosie of the river 2000

round tower 1968

Silent lady 2001

simple soul 2001

tide of life 1976 TV 영화로 제작

Tilly Trotter 1980

Tilly Trotter wed 1981

Tilly Trotter widowed 1982

Tinker's girl 1996

unbaited trap 1966

upstart 1998

whip 1982

wingless bird 1990

year of the virgins 1993

Catherine Marchant 작품연표

fen tiger 1963

Heritage of folly 1962

House of men 1963

iron facade 1976

slow awakening 1976