Born to an impoverished young Tyneside woman in 1906, Catherine Cookson lived a life marked by cruelty and neglect. At the age of 27, she was able to buy a house of her own—a hopeful sign that the escape from her past was complete. In fact, her struggle had barely begun. Following the loss of four babies, a nervous breakdown, and confinement in a psychiatric hospital, she was brought to the brink of suicide and forced to confront the tragedies of her life. The author has known Catherine Cookson for many years and was given full cooperation on this biography by the novelist and her husband Tom, who provided many of the photographs for the book. Originally published in 1997, it tells the story of her long and eventful life through the heroines in her books.