Books by Kathleen Jones

Christina was the youngest of the four Rossetti children, born in England to Italian parents. Although she and her brother, the artist Dante Gabriel, were known as the 'two storms', Christina's passionate nature was curbed in a way that her brother's was not, as she submitted to the social and religious pressures that lay so heavily on Victorian women. Like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, she suffered the tyranny of a loving family. Her sister Maria's influence was described as 'a species of police surveillance', and Christina was always careful never to write anything that would hurt her mother. Often referred to as the 'High Priestess of Pre-Raphaelitism' Christina had a genuine lyric gift that could articulate both the joy of being alive and the bitterness of loss. Her desire for poetic excellence and moral excellence were continually in conflict and her poetry betrays the corrosive effect of this struggle. Christina's deliberate self-effacement, Dante Gabriel's portrayal of her as the meek virgin and William Rossetti's subjective role as editor and interpreter of her work have gradually blotted out the passionate lively spirit who wrote 'Goblin Market' - one of the most complex and disturbing poems ever written. Kathleen Jones looks at Christina's life alongside that of other nineteenth-century women writers - notably Emily Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson.

Catherine Cookson was an illegitimate child brought up in one of the poorest places in the western world. She left school at 13 to become a domestic servant and was later employed in a workhouse laundry. Yet she became one of the best selling novelists of all time and one of the richest women in Britain. Her story is as fascinating as any of her novels, with a plot that includes abandonment, abuse, alcoholism, extreme poverty, and a love affair that almost wrecked Catherine's life and her marriage. She survived it all because she was driven by an ambition so strong it overcame everything to make her a household name. Drawing on tapes recorded by Catherine Cookson herself, personal testimony and original research, Kathleen Jones tells the story of Catherine Cookson's life and goes on a quest to find her absent father - the enigmatic 'Alexander Davies'.

Twelve characters, twelve stories, a year in the life of a small Italian town. What will happen to Pia, the young Greek barista, who is in love with the son of the town's leading fascist? And how is her fate connected to the sisters who run the shoe shop - Olimpia and Marina? They've shared the same bed since they were children, but they have secrets. Clara, the midwife, knows everyone's secrets, but not the fate of her absent son. Living alone, she extends her hospitality to illegal migrants and refugees.Times are hard in Italy. Among the buskers and tourists that crowd the piazza, the residents make a precarious living. In the pizzeria on the corner, Franco is trying to save his marriage and his business. Rose Umber, a young Canadian sculptor, is desperate to remain in Italy when her visa runs out, but that might depend on a decision taken by the elegant Milanese woman, Anastasia, who walks her badly-behaved dog, Fidel, through the piazza every day. Separate but connected, their lives - like their stories - are intertwined within the walls of this historic town.

Here, an attractive selection of Gaelic songs, prayers and blessings are freshly translated for the contemporary reader. This collection reflects the particular Christian experience of the people who composed them and includes an extended introduction.

A lively and informative introduction to some 300 men and women from different Christian traditions and eras who have come to be regarded as holy.

Cutting through the mists of Celtic myth, this historical account introduces the saints to us as real men and women in pursuit of holiness. The Celtic period began in 435 and ended in 715; this work tells the stories of the various branches of the Celtic church in this period.

Discovers what the saints were really like as people and why they came to be regarded as holy. The stories of their lives are retold with the historian's instinct for separating truth from legend, so that we can better appreciate the significance of both.

This version of the poems of St John of the Cross is aimed at all who wish to pray through the poems, the source of all St John's work, but one that also features the popular "romance" (ballad) metre beloved of St John himself. Spanish and English text is on facing pages.

The first biography of Katherine Mansfield for a quarter of a century and the first to take advantage of the complete transcriptions of the diaries and letters of both Katherine Mansfield and her editor husband John Middleton Murry.