Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/455

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Craigie
435
Craigie

since been reprinted in many forms. While still engaged in teaching he had been collecting materials for a comprehensive glossary of Shakespeare, and after his retirement he added to his material a vast mass of illustrative quotations from Elizabethan authors. But he left his collections in too incomplete a condition to allow of publication. He succeeded, however, in completing, for Messrs. Methucn & Co., 'The Little Quarto Shakespeare' with introductions and footnotes (40 vols. 1901-1904), and from 1901 he acted as general editor in succession to his friend, Professor Edward Dowden, of the ' Arden Shakespeare,' also in 40 vols., an edition fully annotated by various scholars. To the 'Arden Shakespeare' Craig contributed the volume on 'King Lear' (1901), an admirably thorough piece of work, and he was preparing the volume on 'Coriolanus' at his death.

Craig, who was a popular member of the Savage Club, combined broad sympathies with his scholarly interests and his love of poetry. To the last he was a sturdy walker, and although an unmethodical worker spared himself no pains in his editorial efforts. He died, unmarried, in a nursing home in London, after an operation, on 12 Dec. 1906, and was buried in Reigate churchyard. Several hundred volumes from his library were presented by his sister, Mrs. Merrick Head, to the public library at Stratford-on-Avon, where they are kept together in a suitably inscribed bookcase. His portrait was painted in 1904 by Alfred Wolmark.

[The Times, 18 Dec. 1906, by present writer; Spectator, 5 Jan. 1907, by S. L. Gwynn, M.P.; Shakespeare Jahrbuch (Weimar), 1907; private information and personal knowledge.]

S. L.


CRAIGIE, Mrs. PEARL MARY TERESA (1867–1906), novelist and dramatist, writing under the pseudonym of John Oliver Hobbes, born at Chelsea, near Boston, Massachusetts, on 3 Nov. 1867, was eldest child in a family of three sons and two daughters of Mr. John Morgan Richards, a merchant of New York. Her mother was Laura Hortense, fourth daughter of Seth Harris Arnold of Chelsea, Massachusetts. The father was summoned to London within a week of the child's birth to conduct a manufacturing chemist's business there. Mother and daughter joined him in February 1868. London remained Pearl's home for life, though she was proud of her American origin and often revisited America. In London her parents resided successively at Kennington, Bloomsbury, and Bays water. From 1872 she chiefly spent the summer with her parents in the Isle of Wight, at Ventnor, whither she constantly retired for purposes of work in later years.

Pearl was educated at the Misses Godwin's boarding school at Newbury, Berkshire (1876-7), and subsequently at private day schools in London. A lively child, fond of story-telling and story- writing, she read widely for herself. Her parents regularly attended the services at the City Temple of the congregational preacher Joseph Parker [q. v. Suppl. II], and Parker, who became a close family friend, first encouraged the girl to pursue literary composition. He accepted stories from her at the age of nine for his newspaper ' The Fountain.' During 1885 she studied music in Paris and became an accomplished pianist. In November 1886 she visited America, and on her return in February 1887 she married in London, when little more than nineteen, Mr. Reginald Walpole Craigie.

The unhappiness of her wedded life profoundly affected her career and temperament. A son, John Churchill Craigie, was born to her at Rock Cottage, Ventnor, on 15 Aug. 1890, but in the following spring she left her husband for good. Emotional suffering working on a mind of a mystical cast impelled her after due reflection to join the Roman catholic church. She was admitted in London on 5 July 1892, taking the additional Christian names of 'Mary Teresa.' She was regular in the observances of her new faith, in which she found spiritual solace, although it failed to silence all spiritual questionings. In July 1895 she was granted on her petition a divorce from Mr. Craigie with the exclusive custody of their child. The public trial occasioned her acute distress.

During her early married life Mrs. Craigio decided to adopt the literary profession. For a weekly periodical, 'Life,' she wrote the dramatic and art criticism as well as a series of articles 'The Note-book of a Diner-out, by Diogenes Pessimus,' which showed a cynical vein of humour. But as her domestic sorrows increased, she grew ambitious of accomplishing more serious work and began a varied preliminary course of study. With a private tutor she worked at mathematics, and then on her separation from her husband she entered University College, London, chiefly devoting herself to Greek, Latin, and English literature. Her teachers were impressed by her promise and eager interest.