Catherine Cookson, whose romantic tales of life in the north-east of England sold 100 million books in 30 countries, has died aged 91.
She would be remembered as a great story teller and chronicler of her generation, said best-selling Irish author Maeve Binchy. "Her strength was that she took the popular novel out of the salon and the aristocracy and gave it to the working people, where it has remained ever since."
Ms Cookson died at her home in Newcastle-upon-Tyne after a long illness, and is survived by her husband Tom. She suffered from a rare blood disorder which had confined her to bed in her last years. Her novels, many of which chronicled working-class life in Yorkshire and Tyneside, were translated into 18 different languages. She continued writing until a few months before her death and her agent said last night that her 100th novel will be published in the year 2000.
She became Dame Catherine in the New Years Honours List of 1993. The awards ceremony took place in her Newcastle home. Born Kate McMullen on June 20th, 1906, in Jarrow, Cookson was the illegitimate daughter of a heavy-drinking mother and never knew her father. She left school at 13 to go into domestic service, taking up writing only in middle age. She went on to become one of the 20 richest women in Britain. While she escaped the bleak, impoverished environment of her early years, she never forgot it. Her books were almost exclusively set in the north-east of England she knew as a girl.
Irish author Deirdre Purcell said Cookson "pioneered a certain type of novel. She knew how to tell a story well."
