Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour

The Author

Catherine Grace Gore (1799-1861) was a clever and prolific writer of tales and fashionable novels. There is something, perhaps, of Jane Austen’s influence to be traced in her novels. The work that more than any other contributed to the establishment of her enviable reputation is Cecil, or the Adventures of a Coxcomb. In 1861, the Times obituary gives a very eulogistic notice of the deceased, and describes her as a woman "whose talk overflowed with epigram and jest, and whose most commonplace remarks were more witty than the best wit of others. Her works will often hereafter be referred to as those of the best novel writer of her class and the wittiest woman of her age."


The Novel

"It was a gloomy evening, towards the autumn of the year 1676, and the driving blasts which wept from the sea upon Greville Cross, a dreary and exposed mansion on the coast of Lancashire, gave promise of a stormy night and added to the desolation which at all traces pervaded its vast and comfortless apartments." Thus started Catherine Grace Gore's literary career, one of the most productive female writers of the 19th century, and the authoress of some of the most brilliant novels in the language. Born at the close of the 18th century, she published her first work, Theresa Marchmont, or the Maid of Honour, in 1824. This highly-finished and dramatic little story was written in a week, and gave the earliest evidence of that wonderful fertility of idea and rapidity of execution which has enabled Mrs. Gore not unfrequently to become her own rival in the fields of literary competition.