Isa Craig

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Standard Name: Craig, Isa
Birth Name: Isa Craig
Married Name: Isa Knox
Self-constructed Name: Isa Craig-Knox
Pseudonym: Isa
Pseudonym: Mrs Knox
Pseudonym: The Author of Deepdale Vicarage
Pseudonym: The Author of Mark Warren
Isa Craig was a poet, journalist, editor, and novelist whose literary work was informed by the concerns of the mid-Victorian feminist movement. Her verse appeared in several periodicals, including the feminist English Woman's Journal, on whose staff she served. As assistant secretary of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science between 1857 and 1865, IC compiled and edited that organization's annual Transactions. Much of her journalistic writing and fiction is didactic in tone, evincing a concern with the struggles and moral reform of working-class daily life.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Christina Rossetti
After the appearance of Goblin Market, CR had less difficulty placing her verse in periodicals. The tide had already started to turn in the 1850s, when her work began to appear in journals including...
Cultural formation Adelaide Procter
AP 's lyric love poem to the somewhat scandalous Matilda Hays , To M.M.H. (published in Legends and Lyrics in 1858 as A Retrospect), and her dedication of that same first collection of poetry...
Friends, Associates Emily Faithfull
As a member of the Langham Place GroupEF counted most of the women activists of the day among her friends. Her far-flung circle of associates included Adelaide Procter and Frances Power Cobbe .
Stone, James S. Emily Faithfull: Victorian Champion of Women’s Rights. P. D. Meany, 1994.
183, 16
Friends, Associates Emily Faithfull
EF suffered in various ways as a result of the trial. The sense that she had prevaricated, at the very least, alienated many of her associates on The English Woman's Journal, including Emily Davies
Friends, Associates Matilda Hays
She remained friends with Anna Jameson , Isa Craig , and Emily Faithfull , but the biographer of the last-named surmises that Hays's loyalty to Faithfull (whose reputation was tarnished because of her involvement in...
Friends, Associates Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP knew personally and corresponded with many of the Victorian intelligentsia. In addition to her Langham Place associates already mentioned, her literary friends and acquaintances included Matilda Hays , Harriet Martineau , Anthony Trollope ,...
Friends, Associates Jessie Boucherett
Partly through her membership of the Kensington Society (a social and political discussion group of about fifty women inaugurated in 1865), JB broadened her acquaintance with significant members of the feminist movement, including Frances Power Cobbe
Friends, Associates Sarah Tytler
ST 's career as a writer introduced her to many leading literary figures (especially those of Scots origin) whom she entertainingly describes in Three Generations.
Tytler, Sarah. Three Generations. J. Murray, 1911.
261-344
She became an especially good friend of Dinah Mulock Craik
Friends, Associates Emily Davies
In London, ED met John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor . At Emily Faithfull 's parties, frequented by Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, Isa Craig , and Bessie Rayner Parkes, she met Anthony Trollope , Louis Blanc
Leisure and Society George Eliot
When the Leweses celebrated their move to The Priory and their son Charlie's promotion and twenty-first birthday with a party, Clementia Taylor and one or two other women attended, but Bessie Rayner Parkes did not...
Occupation John Stuart Mill
JSM served as independent MP for Westminster from 1865 to 1868.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. Oxford University Press, 1985.
Mill, John Stuart, and John Jacob Coss. Autobiography. Columbia University Press, 1924.
vii
The Concise Dictionary of National Biography: From Earliest Times to 1985. Oxford University Press, 1992.
His campaign for election was supported by Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , Bessie Rayner Parkes , Emily Davies , and Isa Craig .
Occupation Ellen Wood
By now an established and successful writer, EW became proprietor and editor (in succession to Isa Craig ) of The Argosy, a monthly periodical that showcased her work. She bought it from publisher Alexander Strahan .
Montgomery, Katherine F. “Ladies who Launch: the Argosy Magazine and Ellen Price Wood’s Perilous Voyages”. Women’s Writing, No. 4, pp. 523 - 39.
525
politics Emily Davies
Committee members included Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon , Elizabeth Bostock , Isa Craig , Russell Gurney , G. W. Hastings , James Heywood , and Louisa, Lady Goldsmid .
politics Emily Faithfull
By 1859 The English Woman's Journal was felt to be no longer adequate on its own for promoting women's work, and Jessie Boucherett suggested the creation of a society which would deal specifically with this...
politics Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Isa Craig , Emily Davies , Bessie Parkes , Jessie Boucherett , and Elizabeth Garrett were members of the committee. Later on Clementia Taylor joined it too.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
154-5

Timeline

February 1856
The Waverley Journal: For the Cultivation of the Honourable, the Progressive and the Beautiful, began fortnightly publication, advertising itself as Edited and published by Ladies.
Harrison, Royden, Gillian B. Woolven, and Robert Duncan. The Warwick Guide to British Labour Periodicals, 1790-1970: A Check List. Harvester Press, 1977.
589
March 1858
The English Woman's Journal, a monthly magazine on the theory and practice of organised feminism, began publication in London, with financial support from Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon and others, under the editorship of...
Probably October 1858
The Ladies' National Association for the Diffusion of Sanitary Knowledge was founded through the work of Isa Craig , Elizabeth Garrett , and Lady Stanley of Alderley , and others.
7 July 1859
The first meeting of the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women was held in London; founding members included Anna Jameson , Emily Faithfull , Jessie Boucherett , Adelaide Procter , Bessie Rayner Parkes , Isa Craig , and Sarah Lewin .
Late 1859
The offices of The English Woman's Journal moved from Cavendish Square to 19 Langham Place, where a ladies' club was also planned.
1860
Maria Rye and Isa Craig established the Telegraph School for Women , to train women for work in telegraph offices where messages handed in and sent.
August 1864
The English Woman's Journal, a practical and theoretical source of organized feminism from London, merged into The Alexandra Magazine and English Woman's Journal.
23 May 1865
The Kensington Society , a quarterly women's discussion group devoted to social and political issues, held its inaugural meeting in London.
December 1865
Alexander Strahan launched The Argosy, a monthly literary and travel magazine, with Isa Craig as its first editor, and Charles Reade 's Griffith Gaunt as its lead serial.