Author: [GORE (Catherine Grace Frances), Mrs.]:
Title: The Fair of May Fair. The Flirt of Ten Seasons. The Separate Maintenance. Hearts and Diamonds. A Divorcée. My Grand-Daughter. The Special License.
Description: London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley..., 1832. 3 volumes. Large 12mo, 198 x 121 mms., pp. vii [viii blank], 348; [ii] [3] 4 - 329 [330 blank, 331 - 332 adverts]; [ii] [3] 4 -375 [376 blank], uncut, original boards, paper label in spine; ms. correction in pencil, volume 1, page 4, hinges cracked volume 2, top of spine volume 1 very slightly defective, corners slight worn, some general wear to spines, but a good set. The pencil alteration in volume 1 changes "expanded into the brocaded train" to "contracted round a tiny waists" with the initials [?] G/ T". "Mrs Gore, as she was always known to contemporaries, began actively writing and publishing from the time of her marriage. After a succession of historical fictions during the 1820s, she came into her own with Women as they Are, or, The Manners of the Day (1830), a 'silver fork', or fashionable, novel which immediately established her as a leading practitioner of the genre. Over the next three decades she produced a great number of popular titles, many of them under the imprint of Henry Colburn, the innovative and unscrupulous publisher who was the main originator of the silver fork mode. The Colburn formula, which Gore perfected, called for scenes of aristocratic high life, set in the Regency or its aftermath and tailored to the expectations of an emerging middle-class readership" (ODNB). This collection of short stories, or novella, did not meet with the same success as Gore's novel, though The Westminster Review commented on it favourably and enthusiastically, concluding with a mild restriction: ""If, after so much deserved eulogy, a fault might be hinted - the authoress should be warned against an overstrained attempt at brilliancy. She need never apprehend being accused of the vice of dullness, the inexplicable crime of fashionable writing; but she may reasonably fear the depreciation of some of her best efforts by a constant pursuit of the dazzling, the pointed, and the elaborate gay. A little more quietness of purpose, a little less glare of effort, would indicate the consciousness of power which she is entitled to feel."

Keywords: fiction women literature


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