Catherine Sarah "Kate" Ferguson (' Lee; November 3, 1841 – May 30, 1928), better known by her

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"Kate Lee Ferguson," was an American

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, and

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best known as the author of ''Cliquot'' (1889) and ''Little Mose'' (1891).

Biography

Catherine Sarah Lee was born on November 3, 1841, in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city coterminous with and the county seat of Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the List of ...

, where she was educated, to William Henry and

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(née Ware) Lee. On August 28, 1862, she married Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel Wragg Ferguson of the 28th Mississippi Cavalry Regiment and accompanied him on his various campaigns. She shocked all of her acquaintances by appearing in 1886 in an amateur production of "Sea of Ice", a then popular drama, "assuming the part of a young Indian maid, in very inadequate clothing – her kirtie only coming down to the knees on one side, and not that far on the other, with bare arms, bare bosom, bare legs, and big bracelets round her ankles." Published in 1889, ''Cliquot'' is the story of Neil Emory, who owns an unpredictable and dangerous horse named Cliquot, whom he cannot find a rider for, as the horse has already killed several previous riders. A mysterious jockey appears who wins the owner a fortune and then turns out to be a beautiful woman named Gwendoline Gwinn, the horse's previous owner. The story is imbued with lust in the "bodice-ripping style", where "female bosoms heave with desire and heroes express their love in ways that an earlier generation would have found much too suggestive."

Selected works

Novels

* ''Cliquot: A Racing Story of Ideal Beauty'' (1889) * ''Little Mose'' (1891)

Short stories

* ''A Woman's Army Experience'' (1898)

References

External links

; Official
Kate Lee Ferguson Papers
at

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