MOORE, Mrs. H. J.

Born circa 1820s; death date unknown

The settings of Mrs. H. J. Moore's works suggest a protestant New England or Middle Atlantic background. Moore's three substantial novels, published within five years, hint at a short but productive period of creativity.

In her first book, Anna Clayton (1855), Moore has a clear thesis to prove, but she grows more subtle and skillful in her later novels. One imagines that the Protestant cause rather than a dedication to art was the goad for Moore's first work, but even by the end of Anna Clayton Moore's aesthetic sensitivity increases. Although her work is always rough, Moore reveals a developing artistry that rewards the modern reader in brief passages of acute observation, in a few vivid if sentimental characters (especially servants and children), and in carefully transcribed conversation and snips of amusing dialect.

In Anna Clayton, Moore focuses on Anna's unfortunate marriage to an English Catholic, Sir Charles Duncan. In rural America, the couple have two children, whom the materialistic Father Bernaldi arranges to kidnap. The plot revolves around the rather naively conceived "lucre-loving priests," who incarcerate the children in order to gain Sir Charles's inheritance, and Anna's first and persevering lover, Robert Graham, who was prevented from marrying her because of Squire Clayton's initial greed and who returns to rescue the children. Both children finally return to their mother, whom Graham marries, and learn true worship from the long-suffering Anna. Throughout this overplotted, sentimental novel, Moore uses her characters to glorify motherhood, vilify aristocratic Europe, and attack the Roman church. The novel's strengths are its passion, the suspense that derives from the earnestness of Moore's complex story, and the charmingly ignorant servant Ralph, whose devotion to Myrtie, his "birdie," engages even the sophisticated reader.

The plot of The Golden Legacy (1857) is simpler, and Moore reveals here a greater sensitivity to character. An orphan, Lonny Brown, is adopted by the farmers Joseph and Henny Atherton because of the concern of their young niece, Nettie. Nettie's aunt Lottie, a model of charity, owes her character to her mother's "legacy," a famed inscription: "Whatsoever ye would that others should do unto you, do ye even so to them." Lottie marries Melville Thornton, who finally discovers that he is Lonny's long-lost father. The novel lacks the suspense of Anna Clayton, but it is both less naive and less sentimental. The townspeople, such as the petty minister, Mr. Flint, and the greedy Mrs. Wormwood, provide amusing comic relief, testifying to Moore's increasing versatility.

Wild Nell (1860) has a yet simpler plot, as Moore insists that religion and education conquer wildness and stresses the moral for mothers. The crazy fortune-teller, Esther Cram, after nursing the injured son, Walter Everson, of her former lover, gives her child, Nell, to be educated by Dr. and Mrs. Jepson. Nell becomes a beautiful, cultivated young woman while her mother reforms. Nell and Walter fall in love, but when the heroine confesses "I AM WILD NELL," Everson and his mother reject her because of her poverty and lack of social breeding. Augustus Murray, Everson's friend, falls in love with Nell who soon returns his affection. The novel's strengths lie in its local scenery and dialect (Dr. Jepson's constant "Gim-i-ni" and the child Nell's "les run" are well observed) and in Nell's rejection of Everson when he wants her back, an unusual turn in sentimental fiction.

—CAROLINE ZILBOORG