Heckington

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 story turns on a family settlement. Heckington is the name of the estate, which falls from want of the male heir, to the elder of two sisters, both of whom marry, when the heiress gives birth to a daughter, and her sister to two sons. It was naturally arranged, in order to preserve the inheritance in the family, that there should be an intermarriage, and the youthful Sophia Corbet has to choose between the two brothers...


Contemporary Reviews


The United service magazine, 1858 — Mrs. Gore is the lady of the thousand and one tales, but, fortunately for the public, her pen is not more prolific than amusing. Invention with her seems inexhaustible; For though each story is in turn pronounced her best, the next proves a still better, and so extends her popularity. Few of our lady authors, indeed, possess the same facilities of composition, and none excel her in vivacity and versatility. 


Morning Post, 1858 — The established reputation of Mrs. Gore as a novelist must ever secure a hearty welcome to any I emanation from her pen. It is a story of deep interest, told with all personal expressiveness of style.


John Bull, 1858 — We have not read any of Mrs. Gore's novels which we like so much as Heckington. It has all the subtle and graceful charm of high-bred life and manners which distinguishes that lady's writings, and the plot is deeply interesting. The heroine is a charming production. Mrs. Gore lays bare with an unsparing hand, and with more than her usual skill, the faults and follies of the fashionable world.


Athenæum, 1858 — A valuable prize to readers in search of a clever novel. The heroine is charming. The sketches of the 'officials' are all admirable—such as only Mrs. Gore can sketch them—light, like, and spirited. Diamond dust is plentifully sprinkled over the pages, in the shape of little epigrams and spirited phrases.