DINAH MARIA

CRAIK (1826-1887)  , English novelist, better known by her maiden name of Mulock, and still better as " the author of John Halifax, Gentleman," was the daughter of Thomas Mulock, an eccentric religious enthusiast of Irish extraction, and was born on the loth of April 1826 at Stoke-upon-Trent, in Staffordshire, where her father was the minister of a small congregation . She settled in London about 1846, deter-mined to obtain a livelihood by her pen, and, beginning with fiction for children, advanced steadily until John Halifax, Gentleman (1857), placed her in the front rank of the women novelists of her day . A Life for a Life (1859), though inferior, maintained a high position, but she afterwards wrote little of importance except some very charming tales for children . Her most remarkable novels, after those mentioned above, were The Ogilvies (1849), Olive (1850), The Head of the Family (1851), Agatha's Husband (1853) . There is much passion and power in these early works, and all that Mrs Craik wrote was characterized by high principle and deep feeling . Some of the short stories in Avillion and other Tales also exhibit a fine imagination . She published some poems distinguished by genuine lyrical spirit, narratives of tours in Ireland and Cornwall, and A Woman's Thoughts about Women . She married Mr G . L . Craik, a partner in the house of Macmillan & Company, in 1864, and died at Short-lands, near Bromley, Kent, on the 12th of October 1887 .