Dinah Craik
1887 portrait by Hubert von Herkomer
Born
Dinah Maria Mulock

(1826-04-20)20 April 1826
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England
Died12 October 1887(1887-10-12) (aged 61)
Shortlands, London, England
Other namesMrs. Craik, Miss Mulock
Occupations
  • Novelist
  • poet
Spouse
George Lillie Craik
​
​
(m. 1865; died 1887)​
Children1 - Dorothy (adopted daughter)

Dinah Maria Craik (/kreɪk/; born Dinah Maria Mulock, often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik; 20 April 1826 – 12 October 1887) was an English novelist and poet. She is best remembered for her novel, John Halifax, Gentleman, which presents the mid-Victorian ideals of English middle-class life.

Life

Mulock was born at Stoke-upon-Trent to Dinah and Thomas Mulock and raised in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, where her father was minister of a small independent nonconformist congregation.[1] Her childhood and early youth were affected by his unsettled fortunes, but she gained a good education from various quarters and felt called to be a writer.[2]

She arrived in London about 1846, at much the same time as two friends, Alexander Macmillan and Charles Edward Mudie. Introduced by Camilla Toulmin to Westland Marston, she rapidly made friends in London and found great encouragement for her stories for the young. In 1865, she married George Lillie Craik, a partner with Alexander Macmillan in the publishers Macmillan & Company, and nephew of George Lillie Craik. They adopted a foundling baby girl, Dorothy, in 1869.

At Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, while preparing for Dorothy's wedding, Craik died of heart failure on 12 October 1887, aged 61. Her last words were said to have been: "Oh, if I could live four weeks longer! but no matter, no matter!" Her final book, An Unknown Country, appeared with Macmillan in 1887, the year of her death. Dorothy married Alexander Pilkington in 1887, but they divorced in 1911 and she later married Captain Richards of Macmine Castle. She and Alexander had a son, John Mulock Pilkington. He married Freda Roskelly and had a son and daughter with her.

Works

Mulock's early success began with the novel Cola Monti (1849). In the same year she produced her first three-volume novel, The Ogilvies, to great success. It was followed in 1850 by Olive, then by The Head of the Family in 1851 and Agatha's Husband in 1853, in which the author used her recollections of East Dorset. Mulock published the fairy story Alice Learmont in 1852, and collected numerous short stories from periodicals under the title of Avillion and other Tales in 1853. A similar collection appeared in 1857 under the title Nothing New.[2]

Well established in public favour as an author, Mulock took a cottage at Wildwood, North End, Hampstead and joined an extensive social circle. Her personal attractions were at the time were considerable; people kindly ascribed to her simple cordiality, staunch friendliness and thorough goodness of heart. In 1857 she published the work by which she is mainly remembered, John Halifax, Gentleman, a presentation of the ideals of English middle-class life. Mulock's next important work, A Life for a Life (1859), made more money and was perhaps more widely read than John Halifax at the time. It was followed by Mistress and Maid (1863) and Christian's Mistake (1865), and by didactic works such as A Woman's Thoughts about Women and Sermons out of Church. Another collection, The Unkind Word and Other Stories, included a scathing criticism of Benjamin Heath Malkin for overworking his son Thomas, a child prodigy who died at the age of seven. Craik criticizes Malkin for acceding to Thomas's requests to be educated at an early age, believing it contributed to his death, but also admits that Malkin's other sons did well in life. Later Craik returned to more fanciful tales and achieved success with The Little Lame Prince (1874). In 1881 she published a collection of earlier poems entitled Poems of Thirty Years, New and Old; some, such as Philip my King were addressed to her godson Philip Bourke Marston. "Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True" achieved wide popularity.[2]

Blue plaque, North Street, Wareham, Dorset where Mrs. Craik wrote John Halifax Gentleman

Reception

Richard Garnett holds that "the genuine passion that filled her early works of fiction had not unnaturally faded out of middle life," to be replaced by didacticism and an increase in self-awareness. Garnett judges Craik's poetry as "a woman's poems, tender, domestic, and sometimes enthusiastic, always genuine song, and the product of real feeling."[3]

Bibliography

A comprehensive bibliography appears in Dinah Mulock Craik by Sally Mitchell.[4] This is reproduced more concisely in the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature.[5] Additional contributions to periodicals:

Tales and sketches

The following all first appeared in periodicals before book form:

In 1871, Hannah was published in two volumes.

Early poems

References

  1. ^ Sally Mitchell, "Craik, Dinah Maria (1826–1887)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, OUP, 2004) Retrieved 12 March 2017, pay-walled.
  2. ^ a b c Garnett 1894.
  3. ^ Dinah Craik, The Unkind Word & Other Stories. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1870.
  4. ^ Mitchell, Sally (1983). Dinah Mulock Craik. Boston: Twayne.
  5. ^ Joanne Shattock (1999). The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature: 1800-1900. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-0-521-39100-9.
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