Dinah maria mulock craik biography for kids

Profile last modified 1 Aug Created 4 Mar Is Dinah your ancestor? Please don't go away! Login to collaborate or commentor contact the profile manager, or ask our community of genealogists a question. Sponsored Search by Ancestry. Dinah Mulock Craik did neither of these. The three Mulocks set up house together in cheap lodgings. Tom left art school and joined the merchant navy sadly he fell into the dry dock during preparations for his second voyage, broke both thighs, and died on February 12, Ben studied to become a civil engineer, while Dinah took to professional writing.

Before the death of her mother, Craik had had several of her poems published, but now she wrote stories for children and adults. She learned how to produce both the simple moral tales that appealed to the educated working-class readership of the weekly Chamber's Edinburgh Journal and the romantic and exotic stories favored by the middle-class readers of the monthly magazines springing up in the wake of more widespread literacy and cheaper printing techniques.

Late inher first novel The Ogilvies was published and was an instant success. The romantic tale of three girl cousins seeking after love and marriage perfectly suited the popular taste of the time. As soon as Ben received his inheritance inhe immigrated to Australia. On being left alone, Dinah took lodgings in Camden Town with another independently minded young woman, Frances Martin.

Such a thing was almost unheard of at this time and the novelty seems to have amused her. She wrote in a letter to her novelist friend, Elizabeth Gaskell"She, 22—I, She continued contributing to magazines, writing children's books and popular novels until, inshe published John Halifax, Gentleman, which critics hailed as a masterpiece and which has never since been out of print.

Perhaps significantly, the main character is male. The story of a poor boy rising to middle-class respectability by honesty and hard work has been likened in sentiment to a book published three years later by Samuel Smiles entitled Self-Help. John Halifax, Gentleman was probably the novel critics had in mind when they began to compare the up-and-coming George Eliot Mary Anne Evans to her, causing Eliot to write rather pettishly to a friend, "the most ignorant journalist in England would hardly think of calling me a rival of Miss Mulock—a writer who is read only by novel readers, pure and simple, never by people of high culture.

It is only fair to say George Eliot did have a point. Its success, however, gave her the confidence and authority to speak out about her own beliefs.

Dinah maria mulock craik biography for kids: Dinah Maria Craik was

InA Woman's Thoughts about Women was published. In this series of essays, Craik sets down the mores upon which she lived her life. Happy marriage and motherhood is best. However, no woman—married or unmarried—should be idle, for activity brings self-respect. Girls ought to be brought up in such a way that, should happy marriage be denied them, they are capable of supporting themselves.

Women have a special responsibility towards one another that transcends class distinctions.

Dinah maria mulock craik biography for kids: Born Dinah Maria Mulock on April

For the next few years, Craik continued to write, living as an independent woman and succeeding in a man's world. Inshe moved to Hampstead. Inshe was awarded a Civil List Pension for her services to literature. Intermittently, she supported her father who did not die until and her brother, Ben. There seems to have been much of the father in the son's make-up.

For 13 years, he traveled about the world, doing various jobs but settling at nothing. From time to time, he came back to Dinah until in he returned once again but this time so mentally ill that she was unable to look after him. He was committed to an asylum, tried to escape, was injured, and died on June Then, inDinah Mulock married. While she was still living in London, there had been a railway accident nearby.

One of the injured was George Lillie Craik, a young man belonging to a family with whom she had been friendly for many years. He was the nephew of George Lillie Craik, Sr. For some time, George the younger was nursed at her house. When he was sufficiently recovered, he returned to Glasgow where he was an accountant. Now they were man and wife.

It was an unconventional match, for the groom was 11 years her junior and physically disabled.

Dinah maria mulock craik biography for kids: Dinah Maria Mulock Craik was

Not everyone approved of the alliance. George's mother accused her of abusing the role of elderly aunt while he was a guest in her house and saw her as lacking in that deference expected of a Victorian wife towards her husband. Dinah certainly continued to work as hard as ever and used her own money to have a house designed for them both by Norman Shaw, a leading architect of the day.

Be that as it may, the marriage seems to have been a happy one. The couple lived in London where George had become a partner in Macmillan's publishing firm. Inthe Craiks adopted a daughter whom they called Dorothy meaning gift of God. This was another act that flew in the face of convention. The baby had been found abandoned near their home and nothing was known about her background.

Medical scientists at this time still believed in "bad blood" and the strength of heredity, but the Craiks were undeterred. Throughout her life, Craik tried to live according to her beliefs. Mulock published the fairy story Alice Learmont inand collected numerous short stories from periodicals under the title of Avillion and other Tales in A similar collection appeared in under the title Nothing New.

Well established in public favour as a successful author, Mulock took a cottage at Wildwood, North End, Hampsteadand joined an extensive social circle. Her personal attractions were at this period in her life were considerable, and people kindly ascribed to her simple cordiality, staunch friendliness, and thorough goodness of heart. In she published the work by which she would be principally remembered, John Halifax, Gentlemana presentation of the ideals of English middle-class life.

Mulock's next important work, A Life for a Lifemade more money and was perhaps at the time more widely read than John Halifax. Another collection, entitled The Unkind Word and Other Storiesincluded a scathing criticism of Benjamin Heath Malkin for overworking his son Thomas, a child prodigy who died at the age of seven.

Dinah maria mulock craik biography for kids: A prolific writer, she

In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikisource Wikidata item. English novelist and poet — Stoke-on-TrentStaffordshire, England. ShortlandsLondon, England. George Lillie Craik. Life [ edit ]. Works [ edit ]. Reception [ edit ]. Bibliography [ edit ]. Tales and sketches [ edit ]. Early poems [ edit ]. References [ edit ]. London: Hurst and Blackett,