Biographical Information about Catherine Gore with particular relevance to Richelieu

 

Catherine Gore (1799-1861)

Catherine Gore was born in East Retford, Nottingham, where her father worked as a wine merchant. After his death, her mother remarried and moved to London. Gore was educated mostly at home, and her penchant for poetry earned her the nickname "The Poetess." Her unpublished poems, in fact, were praised by Joanna Baillie. She married Captain Charles Gore on February 15, 1823, at St. George's, Hanover Square. She gave birth to ten children, but only two of them outlived her. After her marriage, she began to write more seriously and wrote to support her family when they moved to France in 1832. Her husband, who served as lieutenant in the military, retired from service in 1823 and took a diplomatic post when the family moved to France. She continued to write and publish novels from France, and in 1850 she came into a considerable fortune through the death of a relative. She suffered from blindness in her later life, which forced her into retirement. She died on January 29, 1861 at Linwood, Hampshire.

Gore's works spanned several genres - she published poetry, novels, dramas, and even composed music that met with critical and popular approval. She wrote over 70 works (which extended to nearly 200 volumes). As a playwright, her first work, The School for Coquettes, had a successful 30-night run at the Haymarket theatre. She also worked as a musical composer, putting several of Burns' poems to music (including "Ye shall walk in silk attire," "Welcome, welcome," and "The three long years"), which produced some of the most popular songs of 1827.

Although she wore many literary hats - as playwright, composer, translator, poet, editor, and travel writer, among others - she is best known for her "silver fork" novels, which depicted the travails and passions of upper-class "high" society. These novels, full of domestic detail, often professed the virtue of male domination at the expense of the female voice. A popular trait in her work is her attention to domestic detail, or "the minutiae of feminine existence" (Feminist 443). She was criticized for her lack of seriousness in these "silver fork" novels, and Gore herself pointed to her travel writing as the best example of her craft.

Gore had a shrewd business sense when it came to the publishing of her novels. She entered into the writing market by virtue of her husband's connections, and she had a keen awareness of what would sell. In an effort to stimulate the book-buying market, she once published two books anonymously in the same week to generate competition. When she moved to France she took a brief hiatus from writing her "silver fork" novels. She told the editor of the Athenaeum: "I ought to add that general condemnation has rendered me somewhat ashamed of my sickly progeny of fashionable novels, and I have now given the press a series of stories founded on the history of Poland, which I hope will prove more worthy of attention" (Edwards 2). Well aware of the good living these "sickly" novels produced, however, Gore finally returned to the "silver fork" genre. In their time, these novels serve as a precursor to the "best-seller" novels of the twentieth century.

Catherine Gore initially wrote to provide for her family, but as she began to earn more and more money, she began to relish the social status her writing gave her. Like Jane Austen and her other contemporaries, she wrote to push beyond the boundaries of her life as a woman. Her sharp attention to detail and willingness to posit women within their appropriate realm as "proper young ladies" allowed her to find success and enjoy a position of privilege in her society.

Richelieu; or, The Broken Heart was Catherine Gore's third novel, and within it one can see recognizable traits of her writing style. The novel has a definite French influence (which would become even more important to Gore throughout her career) - Duke Richelieu quotes long passages of his own written works in French, which are translated in the novel's appendix. The action takes place in high society, among people who have little concern for labor or social issues; instead, their primary concerns are love, money, and power. Gore is attendant to the details of domesticity here, as elsewhere, and the novel contains enough sensational elements and plot twists to make it popular reading material for the masses for which it was intended.

- Prepared by Amy Krivohlavek, University of Nebraska, December 2002