Catherine Cookson is a conundrum to historians and literary scholars. Immensely popular and internationally known, her works have nevertheless received little critical attention or acclaim. Historians have used her autobiography, Our Kate, as a source on working-class life in the Tyneside or on studies of illegitimacy, but Cookson was not always accurate in her dating of incidents or her presentation of her neighbors' lives. This collection of articles seeks to rehabilitate Cookson's legacy both as a writer and as a source for historians. Four articles examine the theme of illegitimacy; three authors focus on Cookson's relationship to her public; and four essays analyze her as an ethnic writer and as a local industry. The articles cover her autobiography, several of her novels, television films made from her books, and the development of “Catherine Cookson Country” as a tourist attraction. Overall, this book makes the case that Cookson has been marginalized in part because of her gender, class, and great popularity, but also because her books do not fall easily into any one category. The novels (and their subsequent television dramatizations) are not purely romantic, realist, nor regional. In contrast to previous critics, the authors insist that the fact that she is hard to categorize makes her work more, not less, fruitful for further study.

The first section of the book emphasizes the centrality of Cookson's illegitimacy and class origins on her writing. Both her autobiography and her novels are stories of poor women overcoming obstacles to find success, often through education. They are also almost always set in the past, when illegitimacy was deeply shameful, and comment on class and gender disabilities as well as those of bastardy. Tabitha Sparks, for example, points out that Cookson's books resemble orphan stories from Victorian writers, in that many of her protagonists are at least partially higher class than they appear and rely on inner strength (their inherited destiny) to rise. Despite her stated opposition to feminism, Cookson could also be more modern than one would expect; Deborah Morse asserts that she shows a limited tolerance of gay sexuality in The Black Velvet Gown and that she does not shy away from portraying working women's sexual exploitation. The second section draws out the relationship between Cookson and her readers and the way her books reflect social and regional histories. For example, Mavis Aitchison argues that Cookson's Mary Ann novels reflect the working-class experience in northeast England accurately, especially religiously and socially. Julie Anne Taddeo points out Cookson's reworking of working-class masculinity to include more sensitive and damaged heroes, showing, again, her less conservative side (a point later reinforced by James Leggott's article on the television movies based on her books). The third section delves into ethnic issues and more contemporary topics. D. A. J. MacPherson's essay emphasizes Irish identity in her books and the way the novels reflect (or fail to reflect) the experience of the Irish in the Tyneside. Both Leggott's work and Lee Barron's piece on the heritage industry demonstrate Cookson's fervent relationship with her largely female fans, though her popularity is now waning. Both the films and the heritage trail helped “re-create” a history for the Tyneside area that initially proved popular. But that view of the area is moored in a time of ship building and industry, one to which the younger generation relates less well than their grandparents. Thus, the book ends by calling into question Cookson's continued popularity into the twenty-first century.

Several of the works comment intelligently on Our Kate, on both Cookson's vexed relationship with her mother and her humiliation at her illegitimacy. All these articles are influenced by Carolyn Steedman, in particular her view that the main theme in Our Kate is Cookson's realization that she is an outsider by birth, class, and gender. Sparks's view of the autobiography as an orphan tale is complemented by Jo Parnell's analysis of its value as a story of damaged childhood. Sparks also calls it a rags-to-riches story, an equally appropriate designation. The richness of the book in its depiction of working-class life and as a coming of age novel for Cookson is contrasted with her tendency to exaggerate the painful elements of her childhood or to telescope most of the bad experiences to her seventh or eighth year. Cookson's autobiography is, ultimately, more emotionally truthful than accurate in detail, but it remains a fascinating and rewarding text.

Collections like this usually have the drawback of inconsistencies in style and quality. Here the contributors all seek to demonstrate the value of Cookson's work and refute those, such as Robert Colls, who have dismissed her. Given this shared point of view, a bigger problem, then, is the constant repetition. Several of the essays repeat Cookson's biography, the plots of her novels, Steedman's take on Our Kate, and the critics' views. Taddeo may have been better served to include a short biography and bibliography of her works in the beginning and then remove the repetitions in the separate essays. In addition, this reviewer is still not convinced of the literary merit of Cookson's novels. The stories are extremely melodramatic; she was certainly not a believer in “less is more” as far as plot was concerned. For instance, though she should not be criticized for highlighting sexual violence against poor women, few families suffered quite so many calamities in one or two generations as her protagonists invariably do. Her use of coincidence is also a lazy plot device, although, of course, not unknown among more canonical writers like Dickens or Hardy. In general, this collection succeeds in showing Cookson as a gifted storyteller, one who connected emotionally with her readers. However, the authors of these essays have not yet made a thorough case that Cookson is a great writer. Still, the stated goal of the collection is to begin a discussion both of her place in the canon and as a representative of her time and region, and in this area the book succeeds very well.