Monday, June 13, 2005

Mrs. Dinah Craik, née Mulock

Because Mulock's sister Dinah was a famous author who has lately become a feminist icon, some information about Ben's life has been published in relation to her, particularly in Sally Mitchell's Dinah Mulock Craik. Mitchell describes Ben as a flighty, even inconsiderate brother who took off for Australia as soon as he could get his hands on his inheritance, abandoning his sister at a time when women needed male protection. His work as a photographer is presented as a hobby or flight of fancy: "Ben drifted back from Australia, having given up engineering for photography. It is impossible to penetrate sufficiently between the lines of Victorian reticence to discover whether his difficulty was drink, opium, or mental instability..." [1]

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