Dinah Mulock Craik

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Standard Name: Craik, Dinah Mulock
Birth Name: Dinah Maria Mulock
Married Name: Dinah Maria Craik
Indexed Name: Dinah Maria Craik
Pseudonym: The author of Olive
Pseudonym: The author of John Halifax, Gentleman
Used Form: Miss Mulock
Used Form: Mrs Craik
Used Form: the author of A Hero
Used Form: the author of Michael the Miner
Used Form: the author of Olive and the Ogilvies
Used Form: the author of The Head of the Family
Used Form: the author of The Ogilvies
A prolific mid-Victorian professional writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and travel writing, DMC published twenty novels whose commitment to Christian ideals of self-sacrifice and Victorian middle-class values joins with trenchant feminist critique and narrative innovation. John Halifax, Gentleman, portrait of a self-made industrialist, is less representative than her novels about the ongoing practical and psychological challenges facing women in difficult circumstances. DMC 's strong delineation of character and relationships, tendency to write beyond the marriage ending, and treatments of race and ethnicity all repay consideration. Some of her children's stories remain in circulation today. As an essayist, she produced forthright yet witty advice directed at improving women's lot. Her work has fallen into obscurity, although she was one of the most widely read authors of her time.
Oil portrait of Dinah Mulock Craik, by Sir Hubert von Herkomer, 1887. She sits in a wooden chair, her full-figured torso facing to her left but her face turned to look directly at the viewer and hands folded in her lap. She wears a dark dress which merges with the dark background, and a white high-collared blouse with embroidery at the sleeves and lacing in front. She wears a lace headpiece hanging from her grey hair, and her expression is stern. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses George Eliot
On the whole reviewers were enthusiastic (E. S. Dallas began his notice in the Times, George Eliot is as great as ever
Carroll, David, editor. George Eliot: The Critical Heritage. Barnes and Noble.
131
), but the ending of The Mill on the Floss...
Textual Production George Eliot
However, this year and the next (years marked by personal troubles) took her no further than the preliminary stages, while she also planned or wrote a number of poems. While the ideas were percolating, however...
Textual Production Elizabeth Gaskell
The idea of self-improvement through writing and reading correlates to the strong emphasis in EG 's fiction on education and the impact of environment. This was undoubtedly influenced by a Unitarian intellectual background indebted to...
Literary responses Dora Greenwell
The collection was reviewed in the Athenæum by Dinah Mulock Craik , who concluded that the lyre of Dora Greenwell . . . will neither rouse the fancy nor lull the feelings very powerfully....
Friends, Associates Anna Maria Hall
One of AMH 's closest friends was the actress Helen Faucit , later Lady Martin. Though socially conservative in her attitudes, she was apparently more ready than her husband to achieve friendly relations with those...
Occupation Anna Maria Hall
AMH provided help and support to many young writers, including Dinah Craik and Margaret Oliphant .
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.
Publishing Anna Maria Hall
The collection was dedicated to The Patrons and Friends of the Governesses' Benevolent Institution , and, In Especial, To Mrs David Laing . Proceeds from its sale (like those from Dinah Mulock Craik 's Bread...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Geraldine Jewsbury
GJ was an advocate of realist novels with well drawn characters and a coherent plot. Her review of Charlotte Chanter 's Over the Cliffs compared the plot to a child's attempt at drawing a picture,—the...
Dedications Geraldine Jewsbury
She received £180 from publishers Hurst and Blackett . The novel was dedicated to D. M.
Jewsbury, Geraldine. Right or Wrong. Hurst and Blackett.
prelims
whom some believe to be Dinah Mulock Craik , though it has been argued that the true recipient...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text Sheila Kaye-Smith
Here she relates significant moments in her life to what she was reading at the time. She says that her reading, directed at first by chance and the choices of others, later moved towards what...
Publishing Annie Keary
Critic Gaye Tuchman with Nina E. Fortin uses Oldbury as an example of the impact a publisher could have on a writer's popularity, noting that because it appeared in volume form only, AKlost the...
Intertextuality and Influence Eliza Meteyard
The novel's passing allusion to Dinah Mulock 's John Halifax, Gentleman points up similarities between her domestic fiction and EM 's two later novels, although EM's style is considerably more elaborate than Craik's and her canvas narrower.
Friends, Associates Margaret Oliphant
MO and her husband sometimes attended parties with such writers as Samuel Carter Hall , Anna Maria Hall , Dinah Mulock (later Craik) , and Mary Howitt .
Williams, Merryn. Margaret Oliphant: A Critical Biography. St Martin’s Press.
19
Education Beatrix Potter
Beatrix, educated at home and six years older than her brother, was a solitary child. She had few toys; but she became deeply interested in science, and was also, from an early age, devoted to...
Textual Features Anne Thackeray Ritchie
ATR 's domestic realism bears comparison with other neglected chroniclers of the complexities of unsensational Victorian middle-class female lives such as Dinah Mulock Craik and Margaret Oliphant , and her revisions of classic fairy tales...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Craik, Dinah Mulock. Hannah. Harper and Brothers, 1872.
Ingelow, Jean et al. Home Thoughts and Home Scenes. Routledge, Warne and Routledge, 1865.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. How to Win Love; or, Rhoda’s Lesson. Arthur Hall, 1848.
Kaplan, Cora, and Dinah Mulock Craik. “Introduction”. Olive; and, The Half-Caste, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. ix - xxv.
Craik, Dinah Mulock, and Georgiana Craik. Is It True?. S. Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1872.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. John Halifax, Gentleman. Hurst and Blackett, 1856.
Craik, Dinah Mulock, and William Mathie Parker. John Halifax, Gentleman. J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton, 1961.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. King Arthur: Not a Love Story. Macmillan, 1886.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Little Sunshine’s Holiday. S. Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1871.
Rossetti, Christina, and Dinah Mulock Craik. Maude; On Sisterhoods; A Woman’s Thoughts about Women. Editor Showalter, Elaine, New York University Press, 1993.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Michael the Miner. Religious Tract Society, 1846.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Mistress and Maid. Hurst and Blackett, 1863.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. My Mother and I. Isbister, 1874.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Olive. Chapman and Hall, 1850.
Craik, Dinah Mulock, and Cora Kaplan. Olive; and, The Half-Caste. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Poems. Hurst and Blackett, 1859.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Sermons out of Church. Daldy, Isbister, 1875.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. Songs of Our Youth. Daldy, Isbister, 1875.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Adventures of a Brownie. S. Low, Marston, Low and Searle, 1872.
Craik, Dinah Mulock, editor. The Fairy Book. Macmillan, 1863.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Half-Caste. William and Robert Chambers, 1851.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Head of the Family. Chapman and Hall, 1852.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Head of the Family. Chapman and Hall, 1878.
Craik, Dinah Mulock. The Laurel Bush. Harper and Brothers, 1876.
Craik, Dinah Mulock, and J. McL. Ralston. The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak. Daldy, Isbister, 1875.