The Upstart - Softcover

Cookson, Catherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0552156752 ISBN 13: 9780552156752

Publisher: Corgi Books, 2008

Synopsis

Suddenly risen to power and influence, Samuel Fairbrother, manufacturer and retailer of boots, shoes and clogs, decided that his new station in life deserved a more imposing residence. And so he bought himself a thirty-four-roomed mansion situated on the outskirts of Fellburn. With the house came Maitland, the butler, who at once made plain his belief that Samuel, far from the gentleman his predecessor had been, was no more than an upstart. So began a clash of wills and an uneasy truce between master and man. As the years went by and the century turned, Samuel Fairbrother saw his children, one by one, leave the big house to make lives of their own - all except his eldest daughter Janet. It was Janet who, by means of a legacy, was able to shape the destiny of her father's scattered family and effect the reconciliation that he had believed impossible.

About this title

About the Author

Catherine Cookson was born in Tyne Dock, the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. She began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings, where she met and married Tom Cookson, a local grammar-school master. Although she was originally acclaimed as a regional writer - her novel The Round Tower won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 - her readership quickly spread throughout the world, and her many bestselling novels established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists. After receiving an OBE in 1985, Catherine Cookson was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1993. She was appointed an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 1997. For many years she lived near Newcastle upon Tyne. She died shortly before her ninety-second birthday, in June 1998.

From the Back Cover

Suddenly risen from shoemaker to a position of power and influence, Samuel Fairbrother decides that his new station in life deserves a more imposing residence. And so he moves his family into a mansion. With the house comes Maitland, a hostile butler who views Samuel as nothing more than an upstart.

As the century turns, Samuel s children grow up and move away - all except his eldest daughter, Janet. And when the scattered family seems increasingly irreconcilable, it is Janet who holds the key to her father s ultimate happiness.

The Upstart is an absorbing, beautifully told story of wealth, family ties and class conflict at the end of the nineteenth century.

Edition details

• Publisher: Corgi Books
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0552156752
• ISBN 13: 9780552156752
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 480