Catherine Gore

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CG wrote during the earlier nineteenth century, for needed cash to help support her family.
Baird, Rebecca Lynne Russell. Catherine Frances Gore, the Silver-Fork School, and "Mothers and Daughters": True Views of Society in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain. Dissertation Thesis, University of Arkansas, May 1992.
21
Her publications over more than three decades totalled above 70 titles running to 200 volumes:
Gore, Catherine. “Introduction”. Gore on Stage: The Plays of Catherine Gore, edited by John Franceschina, Garland, 1999, pp. 1-34.
30
poetry, plays (though not all her eleven plays performed on the London stage were published), tales, and more particularly novels. She also edited a gift book and contributed articles to magazines. Many of her novel titles flag their particular interest for women readers. Many have European (often historical) settings. Those set in London show sharp awareness of its social stratification, the gulf between fashionable and non-fashionable addresses or accessories, the careless arrogance of those at the top, the snobbish, humiliating struggle of those not quite at the top. Many dramatise the conflict between old and new money, in which the central female figure serves as object of symbolic exchange, as trophy wife. A leading silver-fork novelist, CG kept up her attention to issues of class after the silver-fork moment ended.
  • BirthName: Catherine Grace Frances Moody
  • Nickname: the Poetess
    She was in her teens when joking friends gave her this label.

  • Self-constructed: Nevinson
    Before she married, she was sometimes known by the surname of her stepfather.
    Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
  • Married: Gore
    CG used several variants of her married name on her title pages, from Mrs. Gore to Mrs. C. G. F. Gore.
  • Pseudonyms: Albany Poyntz; The Authoress of The Manners of the Day
    CG rang the changes of allusive reference on her title-pages, listing herself as either author or authoress of this or that previous work, according to whether the former work named was or was not known to be by her. In other words, she sometimes intended her clues to be understood, but sometimes did not. Her practice is well illustrated by the two different allusive designations (the author of Manners of the Day, and the author of Hungarian Tales, Romances of Real Life) which she used, as well as anonymity and her own name, on different books published in 1831.

Black and white reproduction of an unknown artist's portrait of Catherine Gore, 1848. Her hair is in short curls with a middle parting, and she is wearing a dress with a large floral-patterned collar, that leaves her shoulders bare.

Milestones

17 February 1798

Catherine Moody (later CG ), the youngest of four children, was born, probably in London. She was christened three days later at St James's, Piccadilly.
Many sources printed after her death say her birthplace was East Retford in Nottinghamshire; this was where her father was born.
Simons, Gary. Email to Isobel Grundy about Catherine Gore. 12 Oct. 2016.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Simons, Gary. Email to Isobel Grundy about Catherine Gore. 12 Oct. 2016.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By July 1841

CG anonymously published one of her most successful novels, Cecil; or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb.
Baird, Rebecca Lynne Russell. Catherine Frances Gore, the Silver-Fork School, and "Mothers and Daughters": True Views of Society in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain. Dissertation Thesis, University of Arkansas, May 1992.
120-1

By early June 1858

CG published her final work, Heckington: A Novel.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
Baird, Rebecca Lynne Russell. Catherine Frances Gore, the Silver-Fork School, and "Mothers and Daughters": True Views of Society in Early Nineteenth-Century Britain. Dissertation Thesis, University of Arkansas, May 1992.
123
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

29 January 1861

CG died at Linwood, Lyndhurst, Hampshire.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

Biography

Birth and Family

17 February 1798

Catherine Moody (later CG ), the youngest of four children, was born, probably in London. She was christened three days later at St James's, Piccadilly.
Many sources printed after her death say her birthplace was East Retford in Nottinghamshire; this was where her father was born.
Simons, Gary. Email to Isobel Grundy about Catherine Gore. 12 Oct. 2016.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Simons, Gary. Email to Isobel Grundy about Catherine Gore. 12 Oct. 2016.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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