SOURCE: “Elegies for the Regency: Catherine Gore's Dandy Novels,” in Nineteenth-Century Literature, Vol. 50, No. 2, September, 1995, pp. 189-209.

In the following essay, Hughes traces the decline of Silver Fork fiction by focusing on the “plotlessness” and amorality of Catherine Gore's Cecil novels, which, Hughes argues, reflect the general mood of aristocratic life in the Regency period.

Cecil; or, The Adventures of a Coxcomb and its sequel Cecil, a Peer epitomize the dandy novel in its purest form—a rambunctious six-volume romp through the scandalous high life of the Regency and its prolonged aftermath, presented in the guise of first-person memoirs. When the two novels were published anonymously by Richard Bentley in 1841, the flurry of speculation about their unknown author centered on prominent literary figures as well as on members of the peerage. The young William Makepeace Thackeray, to his mingled irritation and envy, found himself unexpectedly caught up in...