Catherine Grace Frances Gore

Catherine Grace Frances Gore (née Moody; 12 February 1798, London – 29 January 1861)

British novelist and dramatist, daughter of a wine merchant at Retford, where she was born. She is amongst the best known of silver fork writers – authors of the "long" Regency era depicting the gentility and etiquette of high society.

Catherine was born the youngest child of Mary (née Brinley) and Charles Moody, a wine merchant. Her father died soon afterwards, and her mother remarried in 1801, to London physician Charles D. Nevinson. As a result she sometimes referred to as "Miss Nevinson" by contemporary reviewers and in scholarship. Catherine was interested in writing from an early age, gaining the nickname "the Poetess".

She married Lieutenant Charles Arthur Gore of the 1st Regiment of Life Guards on 15 February 1823 at St George's, Hanover Square; Gore retired later that year. They had ten children, eight of whom died at a young age. They had one surviving son, Captain Augustus Frederick Wentworth Gore, and one daughter, Cecilia Anne Mary, who married Lord Edward Thynne in 1853.

• First novel, Theresa Marchmont, or The Maid of Honour, was published in 1824.
• First major success was Pin Money, published in 1831
• Most popular and well-known novel was Cecil, or Adventures of a Coxcomb published in 1841.

Gore was also a successful playwright, writing eleven plays that made their way to the London stage.

The Gores resided mainly on Continental Europe, with Catherine supporting her family by her writings. Between 1824 and 1862 she produced about 70 works, the most successful of which were novels of fashionable English life.

Other works

• Manners of the Day (1830),
• Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb (1841),
• The Banker's Wife (1843). (More at WIKI Catherine Grace Frances Gore She also composed music for songs.

Gore's 1861 obituary in The Times concluded that Gore was "the best novel writer of her class and the wittiest woman of her age."

• Updated from FamilySearch Family Tree by SmartCopy: Nov 23 2015, 8:58:48 UTC