Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Gould, Nathaniel
GOULD, NATHANIEL (1857–1919), known as Nat Gould, novelist, was born at Manchester 21 December 1857, the only child of Nathaniel Gould, tea-merchant, of that city, by his wife, Mary Wright. After leaving the private school at Southport where he was educated, Gould alternated between the tea trade and farming with an uncle in Derbyshire; and then, about 1878, became a journalist on the staff of the Newark Advertiser. In 1884 he went to Australia, where during eleven years he worked successively in Brisbane, Sydney, Bathurst, and Sydney again, on the staffs of different newspapers. His journalism was chiefly concerned with horse-racing, but he also wrote short stories and, later, a serial. The publication of the latter in book form was arranged for by Messrs. Routledge, who bought at the same time the book rights in two other serials. Gould ascribed the immense success of this first book, The Double Event (1891), to the coincidence of its publication with the Melbourne Cup meeting—the great racing event of the year in Australia. Thenceforward he and his publishers could count upon purchasers by the hundred thousand for his rapid output of new books.
Gould married at Brisbane in 1886 Elizabeth Madeleine, daughter of Francis Ruska, and by her he had three sons and two daughters. In 1895 he brought his family to England, settling in Middlesex, at Feltham and afterwards at Bedfont.
First with Messrs. Routledge and then, in 1903, with Mr. John Long, Gould entered into, and kept, engagements to supply four novels and one shorter story each year. At his death he had written about one hundred and thirty books, of which twenty-two were still waiting to be put into print at the rate of five each year. This has since been done. The number of copies of his books sold up to the present has been calculated at twenty-four millions.
Gould was on easy terms with his publishers, with life, and with his work. He never haggled for terms nor exaggerated his importance. He disclaimed any pretensions to ‘literature’ or ‘style’, setting himself to write stories that should hold the attention from beginning to end. He was proud of the verdict of a clergyman. that they ‘could be safely put into the hands of any youth or girl’. His stories were always concerned with horse-racing, and he seems never to have been troubled by any suspicion of the harmfulness of betting. Besides fiction he wrote two books on Australian life, On and Off the Turf in Australia (1895) and Town and Bush (1896), as well as The Magic of Sport: mainly Autobiographical (1909). He died 25 July 1919 at Bedfont, and was buried at Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
[Nat Gould, The Magic of Sport; private information.]