Dinah Maria Craik (born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) (20 April 1826 - 12 October 1887) was an English novelist and poet. She was born at Stoke-on-Trent and brought up in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.

After the death of her mother in 1845, Dinah Maria Mulock settled in London about 1846. She was determined to obtain a livelihood by her pen, and, beginning with fiction for children, advanced steadily until placed in the front rank of the women novelists of her day. She is best known for the novel John Halifax, Gentleman (1856). She followed this with A Life for a Life (1859), which she considered to be the best of her novels others were The Ogilvies (1849), Olive (1850), The Head of the Family (1851), Agatha's Husband (1853), Hannah (1871), and Young Mrs. Jardine (1879). ("John Halifax" is based loosely around the life of John Dobell, a wine merchant from Cheltenham.)

Other works include Avillion and other Tales (1853), Christian's Mistake (1865), A Noble Life (1866), and The Little Lame Prince and his Travelling Cloak (1875). She published some poetry, narratives of tours in Ireland and Cornwall, and A Woman's Thoughts about Women (1858). (An Unsentimental Journey Through Cornwall appeared in 1884.)

She married George Lillie Craik, a partner with Alexander Macmillan in the publishing house of Macmillan & Company, in 1864. They adopted a foundling baby girl, Dorothy, in 1869.

At Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, while in a period of preparation for Dorothy's wedding, she died of heart failure on 12 October 1887, aged 61. Her last words were reported to have been: "Oh, if I could live four weeks longer! but no matter, no matter!" Her final book, An Unknown Country, was published by Macmillan in 1887, the year of her death.

About Author:

Dinah Maria Craik (born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) (20 April 1826 - 12 October 1887) was an English novelist and poet.

Dinah Maria Craik's early success began with the novel Cola Monti (1849), and in the same year she produced her first three-volume novel, The Ogilvies, to great success. It was followed in 1850 by Olive, then by The Head of the Family in 1851 and Agatha's Husband in 1853, in which the author used her recollections of East Dorset. Mulock published the fairy story Alice Learmont in 1852, and collected numerous short stories from periodicals under the title of Avillion and other Tales in 1853. A similar collection appeared in 1857 under the title of Nothing New.

Thoroughly established in public favour as a successful author, Mulock took a cottage at Wildwood, North End, Hampstead, and joined an extensive social circle. Her personal attractions were at this period of her life considerable, and people kindly judged her simple cordiality, staunch friendliness, and thorough goodness of heart. In 1857 she published the work by which she will be principally remembered, John Halifax, Gentleman, a presentation of the ideals of English middle-class life. Mulock's next important work, A Life for a Life (1859), made more money and was perhaps at the time more widely read than John Halifax, and was followed by Mistress and Maid (1863) and Christian's Mistake (1865), followed by didactic works such as A Woman's Thoughts about Women and Sermons out of Church. Another collection, titled The Unkind Word and Other Stories, included a scathing criticism of Benjamin Heath Malkin for overworking his son Thomas, a child prodigy who died at seven. Later on, Craik returned to more fanciful tales and achieved a great success with The Little Lame Prince (1874). In 1881 she published a collection of her earlier poems under the title Poems of Thirty Years, New and Old; some, such as Philip my King addressed to her godson Philip Bourke Marston and Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True achieved a wide popularity.

A partial Dinah Maria Craik bibliography:

Tales and Sketches:

- "The Man in Green". 1846 Jul 11, in The Mirror Vol. 1, pp. 20-23
- "Beranger and his Poems". 1846 Aug 1, in The Mirror Vol. 1, pp. 79-80
- "The Poets of the People. I. Allan Ramsay". 1846 Aug 15, in The Mirror Vol. 1, pp. 109-111
- "The Poets of the People. II. Robert Burns". 1846 Sep 19, in The Mirror Vol. 1, pp. 189-190
- "The Emigrant's Wives. A Passage from Real Life". 1846 Sep 26, in The Mirror Vol. 1, pp. 203-208
- "The Story of Erminia". 1847 May, in The New Monthly Belle Assemblee Vol. 26, pp. 284-286
- "Elspeth Sutherland. (A Tale.)" 1847 Jun, in The New Monthly Belle Assemblee Vol. 26, pp. 327-332
- "Great and Little Heroines". 1847 Sep, in The New Monthly Belle Assemblee Vol. 27, pp. 140-144
- "A Sketch of Domestic Life. (From the German of Heinrich Zebokke.)" 1847 Sep 11, 18, 25, in Sharpe's London Magazine Vol. - 4, pp. 315-317, 332-334, 342-344
- "The Peace-Maker". 1848 Feb, in The New Monthly Belle Assemblee Vol. 28, pp. 66-71
- "Poets of the People--Robert Bloomfield". 1848 Mar, in The New Monthly Belle Assemblee Vol. 28, pp. 172-173
- "A Meditation for the Times". 1855 Feb, in Hogg's Instructor Vol. 4, p. 129
- "Running Away. A Schoolmaster's Story". 1868 Dec, in Our Young Folks Vol. 4, Boston, pp. 734-743
- "In the Happy Valley". 1869 Jul, in Our Young Folks Vol. 5, Boston, pp. 444-449
- "Le Boeuf Gras". 1869 Dec, in Our Young Folks Vol. 5, Boston, pp. 825-831
- "In Bolton Woods". 1871 Jan, in Our Young Folks Vol. 7, Boston, pp. 42-48

The following all first appeared in periodicals before the books:

- "Little Lizzie and the Fairies"; "Sunny Hair's Dream"; "The Young Ship-Carver"; "Arndt's Night Underground" -- in The Playmate. A Pleasant Companion for Spare Hours, 1847-48.
- "A Family in Love", as "A Family on the Wing", in Chambers's Journal, 1856 May 3
- "A Garden Party", in Good Cheer, 1867 Christmas
- "His Little Mother", in The Graphic, 5-19 Oct 1878
- "Poor Prin. A True Story", in The Graphic, 11 October 1879
- "An Island of the Blest", in The Sunday Magazine, 1880
- "My Sister's Grapes", in Harper's Young People, New York, 1880 Dec 14, and in Life and Work, 1881 Aug
- "A Ruined Palace", in The Sunday Magazine, 1881
- "How She Told a Lie", in The Sunday Magazine, 1881
- "A City at Play" and "The First Sunday at Lent"

Source: wikipedia