Katharine S. Macquoid

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Katharine S. Macquoid 's prolific writing career (over sixty books, as well as contributions to periodicals) spanned the last four decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. She was chiefly known for her novels or romances (many of them historical) and her travel writing: most notably on France, but also on Italy and Yorkshire. She collaborated with her husband (as illustrator) and later with her son Gilbert (as writer). Her reputation grew steadily until around 1890, charted by increasingly numerous editions in England and the USA, before falling off somewhat, although she was still publishing well into her eighties.
  • BirthName: Katharine Sarah Thomas
    Her name was recorded at her baptism as Catherine, but she used Katharine on her title-pages.

  • Married: Macquoid
  • Pseudonyms: Gilbert Percy; The Author of A Bad Beginning; The Author of Hester Kirton
  • Indexed: Gadsden
    Several sources give her surname at birth as Gadsden (actually her mother's birth name) instead of Thomas.
    ; Mrs. Macquoid; K. S. M.; K. S. Macquoid
Faded black and white studio photograph of Katharine S. Macquoid by H. I. Mendelsohn of London. She is seen from the waist up against a backdrop of vegetation, turning with her face in profile. She wears a dark dress with a high collar closed with a brooch. Her smooth grey hair is pulled back and part covered by a black cap; she has a pearl stud in each ear. Her signature is written across the bottom of the picture.

Milestones

26 January 1824

Catharine Sarah Thomas (later KSM ) was born in Kentish Town in north London; she was one of several children.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman, 1988.

Late 1859

KSM first reached print with a short story in a recently-launched periodical, The Welcome Guest, A Magazine for All.
Her publications here and later in Temple Bar and Belgravia magazines suggest a sustained connection to publisher John Maxwell , and perhaps also to his wife Mary Elizabeth Braddon .
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman, 1988.
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.
Edwards, Peter David et al. Indexes to Fiction in Belgravia 1867-1899. Victorian Fiction Research Unit, Department of English, University of Queensland, 1989.

Late 1885

With At the Red Glove, A Novel, KSM finished a year in which she had already published Louisa, A Novel; At the Red Glove remains probably her best-known novel.
The Spectator. F. C. Westley.
59 (1886): 87

24 June 1917

KSM died at 8 Lucien Roac, Tooting Common, south-west London. She was in her nineties, having outlived her husband by five years.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Johannsen, Albert. “MacQuoid, Mrs Katharine S”. Northern Illinois University Libraries: The House of Beadle and Adams and its Dime and Nickel Novels: The Story of a Vanished Literature.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman, 1988.

Biography

Birth and Family

26 January 1824

Catharine Sarah Thomas (later KSM ) was born in Kentish Town in north London; she was one of several children.
“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Longman Companion to Victorian Fiction. Longman, 1988.

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