The Diamond and the Pearl

The Author

Catherine Grace Frances Gore (Moody) (1799 – January 29, 1861) was a British novelist and dramatist, daughter of a wine merchant at Retford, where she was born. She is amongst the well-known of the silver fork writers - authors of the Victorian era depicting the gentility and etiquette of high society. There is something of Jane Austen’s influence to be traced in her novels. Catherine Gore, like Mrs. Trollope, was a very prolific worker. 


The Novel

The Diamond and the Pearl was published in 1849.  At the center of the novel are the sisters Helen (The Diamond) and Blanche (The Pearl) of Downham Hall. Both meet young Lord Hartingham and the rising lawyer John Watts - their respective choices determine their future lives. One of them marries Blanche Downham, and becomes a happy man;— the other lives with cold-hearted Helen, who cruelly estranges him from his family...