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
Intertextuality and Influence Frances Power Cobbe
FPC continued to promote women's writing and women's causes in tandem, in such places as her writings in 1869 and 1870 on Dinah Craik 's A Brave Lady, a fictional illustration of the need...
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.
Literary responses Camilla Crosland
CC 's storyStratagems, published in 1849, was another book for younger readers. Her friend Dinah Craik , writing for the Athenæum, was less than effusive in her praise. She suggested that to...
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, 1971.
131
), but the ending of The Mill on the Floss...
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....
Occupation Anna Maria Hall
AMH provided help and support to many young writers, including Dinah Craik and Margaret Oliphant .
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
Publishing Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Further early short fiction by MEB appeared in The Welcome Guest, a John Maxwell publication that sold for twopence and aimed at the educated working classes. My Daughters, which appeared on 20 October...
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...
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...
Reception Charlotte Maria Tucker
CMT , whose works sold very well, was regarded as a major female author during the mid-Victorian period. She was incensed when in 1882 some one wrote a sketch of her life, and requested her...
Reception Lucy Walford
LW 's commentary suggest she was superficial in her judgements, anchoring her opinions time and again on appearance. A prominent example comes in her assessment of George Eliot , with whom she was invited 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...
Textual Production Charles Dickens
Other contributions were appeared from Mrs Alexander , Elizabeth Barrett Browning , Edward Bulwer-Lytton , Caroline Chisholm (later parodied by CD ), Wilkie Collins , Dinah Mulock and Georgiana Craik , Amelia B. Edwards ,...
Textual Production Amelia B. Edwards
In the same year ABE was a contributor (with Jean Ingelow , Dora Greenwell , Laura Wilson Barker Taylor , Caroline Norton , Jennett Humphreys , and Dinah Mulock Craik ) to Home Thoughts and Home Scenes, In Original Poems.
Textual Production Anne Thackeray Ritchie
The other stories are Riquet à la Houppe, Jack and the Bean Stalk, and The White Cat.
OCLC WorldCat.
Callow, Steven D. “A Biographical Sketch of Lady Anne Thackeray Ritchie”. Virginia Woolf Quarterly, pp. 285 - 7.
289
Some had appeared in Dinah Mulock Craik 's The Fairy Book, 1862.

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