Faith cook biography

An Interview with Faith Cook

Faith Cook may be the world’s leading Christian biographer, and in Britain she is certainly one of the most loved. We’ve recently republished a numbers of Faiths biographies with fresh new covers, bringing her timeless writing to new audiences.

Roger Carswell interviewed Faith a few years ago asking what her writing routine is, why she writes compilation biographies, and what she does if she uncovers some more delicate issues.

When did you start writing Christian Biography?

I started in about Troubled Journey was my first book, which was my own story and it actually helped me to reconcile myself to my own missionary background which had been very deprived.

Faith Cook may be the world’s leading Christian biographer, and in Britain she is certainly one of the most loved. We’ve recently republished a numbers of Faiths biographies with fresh new covers, bringing her timeless writing to new audiences.

Writing that record showed me that my parents, and missionaries like them, also went through great suffering, and it helped me very much. The first biography I wrote of someone who lived in previous times was William Grimshaw.

Why did you choose to write about the lesser-known Selena Countess of Huntingdon?

She was like the hub of a wheel for the 18th Century revival.

She sent money and help to all the men – Wesley, Whitfield, Grimshaw, all the Welsh evangelists – she helped them, set up a training college, sent out preachers all over the country. She was a most remarkable woman.

Why do you write shorter, compilation biography books?

A lot of Christians like a book they can pick up shortly, on a Sunday afternoon perhaps, and just read one chapter, and feel they’ve read something to completion.

What was the aim of writing Our Hymn Writers and their Hymns?

The aim is not just to tell the story of how a hymn came into being, but look at the writer, and why he wrote the hymn, what his own spiritual thought, technique, poetry, and above all beauty was.

Although I love some of the new hymns, some of the old hymns have such deep theology and emotional love for God and I’ve been blessed through hymns.

How does Surprised by God vary from your other books?

It’s the only book I’ve written with stories of conversions.

Faith cook basketball Faith Cook, daughter of Stanley and Norah Rowe, missionaries of the China Inland Mission (now OMF), was born in north-west China. After missionaries were evicted from the country in , she returned to the UK and attended Clarendon School in North Wales before proceeding to teacher training college in Bromley, Kent.

Men and women, right up to one who is a friend still alive, whose conversion was a surprise of God on his life. It’s the only book I would say is entirely suitable for giving to those who are enquiring, or not Christian.

Do you ever find out things that are better left alone?

Yes, I do, but very, very rarely. I think you do need to bring out warts-and-all in a book, it’s not fair to just bring out all the good points, but there are occasional things you come across which it’s best not to broadcast.

If anyone wrote my life there would be things I wouldn’t want to be known, because we all struggle at times.

How long does it take to write a biography?

It varies very much.

Faith cook biography Faith has written of her childhood in China in Troubled Journey, and has authored several other books published by the Trust, including Sound of Trumpets, Singing in the Fire, and two major biographies – Selina, Countess of Huntingdon and William Grimshaw of Haworth.

Selina Countess of Huntingdon took 5 years! I spent a whole year just transposing her correspondence into legible writing as it was terrible, with no punctuation, and spellings everywhere. It was very hard to read.

What is your routine when you write?

I’m totally disorganised! When I’m working on a book I do it virtually all day.

I try to do my housework and whatever needs doing – meals, walking the dog – but all the spare time is spent either reading or revising my writing. It’s obsessive, and probably not recommended, but it gets the books done.

Faith Cook Biographies

A Pilgrim Path – John Bunyan’s Journey

And So I Began to Read – Books that have influenced me -

Anne Bradstreet– Pilgrim & Poet

Fine Gold from Yorkshire

·      Titus Salt of Saltaire: a lasting legacy

·      Anne Brontë: Yorkshire’s got talent

·      Kit Calvert: Wensleydale Cheese

·      John Nelson: the stonemason preacher

·      Samuel Marsden: apostle to the Maori

·      Hudson Taylor: for the love of Christ and China

·      Fred Mitchell: climbing on track

·      Praying Johnny: and what happened in Filey

·      Benjamin Ingham: Yorkshire’s first apostle

·      John Wycliffe: father of the English Reformation

·      Ruth Clark: a servant girl

·      William Wilberforce: setting the captives free

·      John Fawcett: binding hearts together

·      Robert Arthington: the generous recluse

·      Ezekiel Rogers: God’s exile

·      Joseph Milner: when Hull became ‘a garden of the Lord’

·      Miles Coverdale: the first English Bible

·      William Grimshaw: a mighty evangelist

·      William Scoresby: when God interrupts

·      Richard Conyers: Rector of Helmsley

·      Bishop Robert Ferrar: a Yorkshire martyr

Nine Day Queen of England – Lady Jane Grey

Our Hymn Writers and their Hymns

•               Isaac Watts

•               Philip Doddridge

•               Charles Wesley

•               William Williams

•               Joseph Hart

•               Augustus M.

Toplady

•               John Newton

•               William Cowper

•               James Montgomery

•               Henry Francis Lyte

•               Horatius Bonar

•               Frances Ridley Havergal

•               Fanny J. Crosby

•               and more

Out of the Shadows

·      James Lackington: The Enigma

·      Richard Rodda: One of Wesley&#;s Veterans

·      Fanny Burnett: Charles Dickens&#; favourite sister

·      Michael Bruce: A poet robbed

·      Lorenzo Dow: God&#;s eccentric

·      Elizabeth Singer Rowe: True beauty

·      William Dell: John Bunyan&#;s irrepressible friend

·      Hallgrimur Petursson: Poet of the cross

·      Patricia St John: A personal tribute

Seeing the Invisible

•          William Darney: ‘Scotch Will’, pedlar and preacher

•          Harriet Newell: Where stormy seas cannot divide

•          Ezekiel Rogers: God’s poor exile

•          Jane: A child who believed

•          Elizabeth Bunyan: Out of weakness made strong

•          Robert Jermain Thomas: A single, steady aim

•          Lavinia Bartlett: Spurgeon’s ‘best deacon’

•          Leonard Dober: Volunteer slave

•          Martha Nelson: The cause is God’s

•          John Blackader: Resolute Covenanter

Selina Countess of Huntingdon - Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening

Surprised by God

•          William Mackay

•          William Clowes

•          Grace Bennet

•          Thomas Lee

•          Joan Waste and William Hunter

•          John Vanderkemp

•          Marion Veitch

•          John Cennick

•          Ruth Clark

•          William Tennent

•          David

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