Mrs. (Catherine Grace Frances) Gore

Born Catherine Grace Frances Moody, she married Captain Charles Arthur Gore in 1823 and published widely under the name Mrs. Gore. She became one of the best-known writers of fashionable or "silver fork" fiction, a popular kind of novel that explored elite society, style, and etiquette.

Her output was remarkably large: she wrote dozens of novels as well as plays and other shorter pieces. Among the works most often associated with her are Mothers and Daughters and Pin Money, books that helped define her reputation for brisk storytelling and a keen eye for social behavior.

Although her fiction was closely tied to the tastes of her own time, her work still offers a vivid picture of nineteenth-century class, manners, and ambition. She died in 1861, and she remains an important figure for readers interested in popular Victorian fiction and the literary world that surrounded it.