Author: Moore, George
Biography:
MOORE, George (fl 1793-1811)
Moore’s earliest known work was a Gothic thriller, Grasville Abbey, published in parts in the Lady’s Magazine between 1793 and 1797 under his initials and then collected in three volumes by Robinson in London; there were quite respectful reviews, several reprintings (Dublin, Cork, and Salem MA) and French and German translations. He went on to produce the poem listed here and further fictions, Theodosius de Zulvin, the Monk of Madrid (1802) and Tales of the Passions (1811). Every one of these books undertakes serious psychological analysis; they are not merely sensational potboilers. ESTC attributes Grasville Abbey—and by implication, the later titles—to “George Moore, Barrister at Law,” which would identify him as the Irishman of that name (1773-1840), second son of George Moore (1729-99) and Katherine de Kilikelly (1738-1813) of Moore Hall in Co. Mayo, who registered at Lincoln’s Inn on 15 Sept. 1790 and went on to write about history and politics. That man married Louisa Browne (1787-1860), the granddaughter of an earl, in Sligo, Ireland, in Sept. 1807; he was the father of three sons, including the MP and renowned orator George Henry Moore (1810-70), and grandfather of the novelist George Augustus Moore (1852-1933). But the author of the romances appears to have lived in London (he gives an address on Tottenham Court Road) and to have had connections to the Isle of Wight, where he made an extended visit in 1798-9. It is possible but scarcely credible that the same person wrote both these works and Observations on the Union, Orange Associations, and Other Subjects of Domestic Policy (1800), Lives of Cardinal Alberoni and the Duke of Ripperda (1806), and later histories of the English Revolution of 1688-9 and of the French Revolution. The life of George Moore of Moore Hall is fairly well documented and no reference to the Gothic has been found. The name however is so common that no other candidate can be identified with confidence. (ancestry.com 10 July 2023; ESTC; EN1, EN2; ODNB [George Henry Moore] 10 July 2023; DIB 10 July 2023; Lincoln’s Inn Register of Admissions, 1420-1799 1:536) HJ