Edmund Reid

Dinah Maria Mulock
family. When her mother died in 1845, Dinah became
responsible for her needs and those of her brother. She
started writing stories for children which provided her
with a modest income until she achieved success with
her novel, The Ogilvies (1849), which was favourably
received by the critics and facilitated her entrance
into the literary world. A number of novels followed,
culminating with the great success in 1856 of her novel
John Halifax, Gentleman, which chronicles the rise of
the title character from poverty to wealth during the
Industrial Revolution.
Now rich herself and commanding £2,000 per novel,
Dinah Mulock bought a cottage at Hampstead and joined
an extensive social circle. She continued to write both
fiction and non-fiction such as A Woman’s Thoughts
about Women and Sermons out of Church. In 1864, she
was awarded a Civil List pension which she set aside for
authors less fortunate than herself. One year later, in
1865, she married George Lillie Craik, a partner in the
publishing house of Macmillan & Company. From then on
she signed her work Dinah Maria Craik or Mrs Craik. Since
she was considered as being too old for bearing children,
the couple adopted a child, Dorothy, in 1869. Dinah
Mulock Craik died of heart failure on 12 October 1887
during a period of preparation for Dorothy’s wedding. It
was said that her last words were ‘Oh, if I could live four
weeks longer! but no matter, no matter!’
Our Victorian Fiction offering for December, Dinah
Mulock’s The Last House in C—Street, is a true ghost story, thoroughly deserving of publication in our Christmas
issue, although it first appeared in Fraser’s Magazine not at Christmas but in August 1856. Despite its title,
reminiscent of gory exploitation films, this is a gentle story and its ghost is not of the malevolent kind. But don’t
let that discourage you. Few stories represent better the Victorian ghost story, with its limitations and its virtues,
than this one.
COMING SOON
The Master Ghost Hunter
A Life of Elliott O’Donnell
By Richard Whittington-Egan
A dapper figure - gold-rimmed pince-nez, scarlet-lined cloak, silver-knobbed cane - Elliott
O’Donnell was the world-famed prince of ghost hunters. His life spanned 93 years, 1872-
1965.
He remembered Jack the Ripper, the ghost of whose victims he sought, and Kate Webster, the
savage Irish cook of Richmond, who slaughtered her mistress, Mrs Julia Thomas, and boiled
her head up in a saucepan. Other phantoms ranged from poltergeist, weird box-headed
elemental spirits with eyes that glowed like yellow moons, sweet-visaged old ladies in bonnets
and crinolines, to an evil Dublin ghost that tried to strangle him. He hunted the haunted and
the haunters throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Further afield, he came face
to face with supernatural horrors in New York, and San Francisco, and we accompany him on
a horse-ridden expedition into the heart of a haunted American forest.
Ripperologist 147 December 2014 48
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