Author: Gore, Catherine Grace Frances
Biography:
GORE, Catherine Grace Frances formerly Moody (1798-1861: ODNB)
Born on 12 Jan. 1798 (baptised 20 Feb. at St. James's, Piccadilly), she was the daughter of Charles Moody, a London wine merchant, and Mary (Brinley) Moody. Her father died in 1799 and her mother remarried on 15 Oct. 1801, to Charles Dalston Nevinson, a physician. She spent much of her childhood with her mother’s relations, including Frances, Lady Wentworth, and became accustomed to titled society. On 15 Feb. 1823 at St. George's, Hanover Square, she married Lieutenant Charles Arthur Gore; although the couple had ten children, many died in early childhoo and just two survived. She had begun writing in childhood and, after her marriage, embarked on the very successful literary career that provided financially for her family. Her verse tale, The Two Broken Hearts (1823) is sometimes referred to in modern critical accounts as a novel: it is a poem. A measure of her success is that her second work in verse, The Bond, A Dramatic Poem was issued by John Murray in 1824. Gore wrote historical novels, plays, periodical pieces (including for the popular keepsake annuals), but was best known for her “silver fork” novels which were valued by her contemporaries for the accuracy of her witty and sometimes satiric depiction of high society. She enjoyed celebrity status in London, but the family also lived in Paris and Brussels, possibly for financial reasons. A substantial sum of the considerable fortune she earned through writing was lost in a bank collapse in 1855. In later life she became blind. She died on 29 Jan. 1862 at Linwood, Lyndhurst, Hampshire, and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery near the grave of her good friend and fellow writer, Julia Pardoe. (ODNB 2 Feb. 2019; ancestry.co.uk 11 Mar. 2025) SR
Other Names:
- Catherine Gore
- Mrs. C. Gore
- Mrs. Charles Gore