Catherine Maria Grey

01 January 1798 - 19 February 1870

Standard Name: Grey, Catherine Maria

Birth Name: Catherine Maria Grindall

Used Form: Mrs Grey

CMG was a popular silver-fork novelist, most commonly known as Mrs. Grey to her readers. Her works are often misattributed to her daughter Anna Maria Grey , or to the unrelated Maria Georgina Grey (1816-1906). What's more, CMG 's work has been even more confusingly ascribed to a completely fabricated Mrs. Grey since at least the 1920s, when independent scholar Andrew de Ternant 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 CMG , Maria Grey (1816-1906), and James Malcolm Rymer (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.

Spedding, Patrick. “The Many Mrs. Greys: Confusion and Lies about Elizabeth Caroline Grey, Catherine Maria Grey, Maria Georgina Grey, and Others”. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol.

104

, No. 3, Sept. 2010, pp. 299-40.

306, 307-8

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.

Smith, Helen R. New Light on Sweeney Todd, Thomas Peckett Prest, James Malcolm Rymer and Elizabeth Caroline Grey. Jarndyce, 2002.

Most information on offer about the so-called Elizabeth Caroline Grey derives from Andrew de Ternant ' false account submitted in a letter to Notes and Queries. Addressing a query from the journal's editor, Frank Jay , 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.

104

, No. 3, Sept. 2010, pp. 299-40.

327-8

Thanks to the work of Helen Smith and Patrick Spedding , 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 Maria Georgina Grey (1816-1906), with the addition of works by James Malcolm Rymer (1814-84).

104

, No. 3, Sept. 2010, pp. 299-40.

Smith, Helen R. New Light on Sweeney Todd, Thomas Peckett Prest, James Malcolm Rymer and Elizabeth Caroline Grey. Jarndyce, 2002.

Full profile

Connections

Connections Sort descending	Author name	Excerpt
Author summary	James Malcolm Rymer	James Malcolm Rymer was a prolific penny dreadfulist, novelist, and journal editor. Although he rarely published under his own name but instead employed a large number of pseudonyms, his works of fiction (which may have...
Textual Production	Elizabeth Strutt	A listing of it as by the Author of Alice Seymour wrongly implied that it was writtten by the elusive Catherine Maria Grey . Spedding, Patrick. “The Many Mrs. Greys: Confusion and Lies about Elizabeth Caroline Grey, Catherine Maria Grey, Maria Georgina Grey, and Others”. The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol. 104 , No. 3, Sept. 2010, pp. 299-40. 306n23

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Grey, Catherine Maria. Alice Seymour. J. Hatchard and Son, 1831.

Grey, Catherine Maria. Lion-Hearted. Sampson Low, Son, and Martson, 1864, 2 vols.

Grey, Catherine Maria. The Duke. Richard Bentley, 1839.

Grey, Catherine Maria. The Gambler’s Wife. T. C. Newby, 1844.