Catherine Maria Grey
-
was a popular silver-fork novelist, most commonly known as Mrs. Grey to her readers. Her works are often misattributed to her daughter
, or to the unrelated
(1816-1906). What's more,
's work has been even more confusingly ascribed to a completely fabricated Mrs. Grey since at least the 1920s, when independent scholar
invented her life and bibliography in a letter to Notes and Queries, identifying Mrs Grey as one Elizabeth Caroline Grey, née Duncan. Elizabeth Caroline Grey is now considered to be non-existent as such, apparently a mix of
, Maria Grey (1816-1906), and
(1814-84). Patrick Spedding assigns to her twenty-one novels published between 1831 and 1864, plus a handful which she edited or may have been concerned with. Helen Smith urges scholars to pay some attention to the actual novelist who was buried under misinformation: it is certainly time to give Catherine Maria Grey due recognition.
Most information on offer about the so-called Elizabeth Caroline Grey derives from
' false account submitted in a letter to Notes and Queries. Addressing a query from the journal's editor,
, de Ternant built on Jay's misattribution of Gentleman Jack to a Mrs. E. C. Grey and convincingly orchestrated a detailed account of her life and writing. This account was accepted by the editors of Notes and Queries and worked its way into respected library catalogues and scholarly publications, causing much confusion. Thanks to the work of
and
, the life and writing of Elizabeth Caroline Grey, after more than a hundred years, has been exposed as a dizzying case of academic mishap, compulsive lying, and lost identity. To sum up, the popular Mrs Grey, usually presumed to be Elizabeth Caroline Grey née Duncan, is now seen to be made up of information about Catherine Maria Grey née Grindall (1789-1870) and
(1816-1906), with the addition of works by
(1814-84).