CRAIK, DINAH MARIA (1826-1887), author of John Halifax, Gentleman, was the daughter of Thomas Mulock, an eccentric religious enthusiast of Irish extraction, and was born on April 20, 1826 at Stoke-upon-Trent, Staffordshire. John Halifax, Gentleman (18J7), 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 im portance except some very charming tales for children. She mar ried Mr. G. L. Craik, a partner in the house of Macmillan and Company, in 1864, and died at Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, on OCt. I2, 1887.