Craik, Georgiana Marion I Miss Craik I, 1831-1895, novelist; daughter of George Lillie Craik (D.N.B.). In 1886 married Allan Walter May, artist. Contributed her first stories to periodicals. Published some twenty-five novels; Lost and Won, 1859, the most popular. Wrote also books for children; one of her "So-Fat and Mew-Mew" stories seemed to George Eliot "a little chef-d'oeuvre" (Letters, IV, 69).

      In an undated letter to Wills, Dickens wrote of Miss Craik and one of her H.W. contributions: "Her imitation of me is too glaring – I never saw anything so curious. She takes the very words in which Esther [i.e., Esther Summerson] speaks, without seeming to know it."
      A letter from Charles Dickens, Jr., to Miss Craik, June 9, 1879 (A.Y.R. Letter-Book), indicates that Miss Craik submitted material to A.Y.R.
      All three of Miss Craik's H.W. contributions ["The Three Sisters V, 359-64. July 3, 1852 and the following no.; "My Fortune" VI, 223-29. Nov. 20, 1852; Berthalde Reimer's Voice VI, 507-515. Feb. 12, 1853] were reprinted in Harper's, without acknowledgment to H.W. "My Fortune" (re-titled "Fortune Wildred, the Foundling") appeared as the first of three stories "By Charles Dickens" in a collection (n.d.) published by the New York firm De Witt & Davenport (the second item in the collection was one of Mrs. Gaskell's H.W. stories; the third, one of Howitt's).
                                                                                                                                              Boase

Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.