Catherine Sarah "Kate" Ferguson (' Lee; November 3, 1841 – May 30, 1928), better known by her pen name "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 writing novels and other fiction, while others asp ...

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 ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

, and composer 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, 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

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s. 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 the

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...