The Year of the Virgins - Hardcover

Cookson, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671896504 ISBN 13: 9780671896508

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1995

Synopsis

Struggling to maintain a facade of family harmony for the sake of their religious beliefs and three grown children, Winifred and Daniel Coulson begin a legacy in which their youngest son, Donald, must choose between the values of the past and present. 30,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Back Cover

It had never been the best of marriages and over recent years it had become effectively a marriage in name and outward appearance only; more than once teetering on the brink of total disintegration. Yet, in the autumn of 1960, Winifred and Daniel Coulson presented an acceptable façade to the outside world. Daniel's business had grown and prospered to the extent of bringing them the wealth to live at Wearcill House, a mansion with grounds almost in the stately-home league, and situated in the most favoured outskirt of the Tyneside town of Fellburn. They were dutiful in their observances as members of the Catholic Church, and they had three sons.

Stephen, the eldest, remained at thirty the man-boy he would always be, gentle and loving yet utterly dependent on others, especially his two siblings: the staunch and self-reliant Joe, no less supportive for having been adopted, and young Donald, on whom Winifred doted to the point of obsession. Now Donald was to be married, to the only daughter of another affluent and Catholic Fellburn family; a liason as happy in prospect as it was undeniably suitable. But could the mother face up to a final cutting of the umbilical cord and to letting her ewe lamb go? And was he entering marriage with the unbesmirched purity of body and spirit that mattered so much to her? This might be the second half of the twentieth century, but amidst the strange workings of Winifrid's mind much older conceptions of morality and the teachings of the Church still held sway.

There was something potentially explosive just below the surface of life at Wearcill House, but when that explosion came it was in a totally unforseeable and devastating form, and even before the wedding festivities had ended. Its reverberations would plunge the Coulsons into an excoriating sequence of physical and emotional crises out of which would come both good and evil, as well as the true significance of the year of the virgins.

This is one of Catherine Cookson's most moving and fascinating stories of family conflict, rich in drama and many-faceted characterisation, evocatively set in a landscape where her great company of readers throughout the world know her to be masterfully at home. It again confirms her unique standing as the best-loved of contemporary novelists.

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 best-selling 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0671896504
• ISBN 13: 9780671896508
• Binding: Hardcover