B. M. Croker

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BMC was a sharp-eyed observer of people and places. Her nearly fifty novels (published between 1881 and 1917), and her stories in periodicals and collections, are often set either in her native Ireland or in British India (in the many different regions, including the Andaman Islands and what was later known as Burma or Myanmar, where she accompanied her husband when he was an army officer). Her novels are mostly romances or courtship stories, which have attracted recent critical comment from postcolonial scholars for what they reveal about British attitudes to British rule in India. Meanwhile her ghost stories continue to be actively circulated and consumed.

Milestones

28 May 1847

Bithia May Sheppard (later BMC ) was born in Ireland, the only daughter in her family and the second child.
This date comes from the index to Find a Grave (available online at ancestry.co.uk) which lists her as Bithia Mary. Most sources give only an approximate date a year or two later.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By 9 September 1882

BMC published her first, anonymous, novel, Proper Pride, which she had begun writing secretly in 1880 as a distraction from physical discomfort during the hot season in India.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
30608 (9 September 1882): 4

20 October 1920

BMC died in London at 30 Dorset Square, after nine years a widow.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By mid-March 1921

BMC 's The House of Rest (a novel about a community of cosmopolitan folk in a delightful old-world village)
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
42683 (1 April 1921): 10
was published posthumously.
TLS Centenary Archive Centenary Archive [1902-2012]. http://www.gale.com/c/the-times-literary-supplement-historical-archive.
(17 March 1921): 173

Biography

Birth and Family

28 May 1847

Bithia May Sheppard (later BMC ) was born in Ireland, the only daughter in her family and the second child.
This date comes from the index to Find a Grave (available online at ancestry.co.uk) which lists her as Bithia Mary. Most sources give only an approximate date a year or two later.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Ancestry.co.uk. http://www.ancestry.co.uk.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.