Catherine Cuthbertson

Catherine Cuthbertson ( 1775 – June 1842) was an English novelist who was best known for her novel The Romance of the Pyrenees, which was widely popular throughout England. Her novel, which was influenced by Ann Radcliffe was translated into French and German, and it went into many editions. Her novels closely mirrored the style of Ann Radcliffe, and she was one of the best Radcliffe imitators.

Life Cuthbertson's origins are not known, although it appears that she was born before 1780, was the daughter of an army officer, and had at least four siblings. She is thought to have died some time after her final known book appeared in 1830. Suppositions that she was a sister of Helen Craik have not been substantiated. Research in 2016 at the University of Kent revealed that "Kitty" Cuthbertson was well known in her time. A burial record discovered indicates that she died in Ealing in June 1842, possibly aged 67. This would make her date of birth about 1775. At least one, Santo Sebastiano (1806), was published twice in penny instalments, as The Heiress of Montalvan, or First and Second Love (1845–46) and as Santo Sebastiano, or The Heiress of Montalvan (1847–48).

Cuthbertson has been described by present-day scholars as a "fairly conventional novelist" using "historically realised settings (often in continental Europe)" with "happy endings". Her upper-class characters appear virtuous, her lower-class ones comic or occasionally horrific.

A recent anthologist puts her among "the best of the Radcliffe imitators." Romance of the Pyrenees was serialized in the Lady's Magazine, starting in February 1804, but not in book form, "probably because the expected second sale did not warrant the cost." It took three years and "is the longest novel ever published in an eighteenth-century miscellany, with the single exception of Pamela." The work was also translated into French, but attributed there to Radcliffe,