Catherine Cookson's Hamilton novels have taken their place among the most widely acclaimed and enjoyed of her books. In this omnibus edition of Hamilton and Goodbye Hamilton, she shows her exceptional ability to tell a story in which good humor and a sense of compassion are finely blended, with characters so vividly alive they leap off the page.

Maisie could never be quite sure when she first met Hamilton, but most likely it was when she started talking to herself as a lonely seven-year-old. She didn't know his name until much later, when she was fourteen and Dr....

Ward Gibson knew what was expected of him by the village folk, and by the Mason family, whose daughter Daisy he had known all his life. But then his whole world had been turned upside down by a dancer. And a scorpion had already begun to emerge from beneath the stone of the local community, who considered that Ward had betrayed their expectations.

It had never been the best of marriages. There was something potentially explosive just below the surface of life at Wearcill House, but when that explosion came it was in a totally unforeseeable and devastating form, plunging the Coulsons into an excoriating series of crises out of which would come both good and evil.

Maggie Gallacher had all but read the print off the elegant, gold-trimmed card. An invitation from the Duke of Moorshire to an evening at Lea Hall? She could still scarcely believe her eyes, even if it was a long-overdue honour - after all her husband Rod had done for the town.

In this sequel to Catherine Cookson's collection of essays and poems, Let Me Make Myself Plain, she offers a further selection of thoughts, recollections and observations on life - and death - together with more of the poems she prefers to describe as prose on short lines. She reveals some of the qualities that allow her to draw upon the inner strength she needs to continue the battle for life - a life that has, for the last 50 years, given readers pleasure through the medium of her novels, each inspired by the harsh nature of her early years.

This collection is set against the background of places already familiar to Catherine Cookson's readers - the North-East, the South Coast and London, with a time-scale stretching from the 1920's to the modern day.

Opens with a seventeen-year-old Mary Ann struggling with the painful business of growing up as her first love, Corny Boyle, leaves for America. This work follows her through her eventual marriage to Corny, and the joys and trials of being a wife, and a mother to six-year-old twins, Rose Mary and David.

Rooney values his independence and has managed to avoid four widows and two spinsters. But once he moved to Ma Howell's place, life became very complicated. Harry is the nice bloke who succumbs to the office vamp at the Christmas party, and sets off a scandal that changes everything.

Kate Hannigan, Catherine Cookson's first published novel, has been in print since it first apeared in 1950. Now, 50 years later, comes its sequel Kate Hannigan's Girl. As Kate did, Annie must find the strength and maturity to overcome troubles.

This novel tells the story of a young girl, Lizzie, who was rescued from the streets and given the chance of a new life. Lizzie blossomed into a woman with ideals and expectations, and began to realize that she no longer needed the support of the man she had once regarded as her saviour.