Dinah Mulock Craik and Benjamin Mulock

Abstract

Stories of nineteenth-century women writer's entrance into the profession of authorship have long emphasized the failings of their male relations. Alcoholic fathers and absent husbands are seen as the catalyst that spurs women into earning a living through authorship. This paper takes Dinah Mulock Craik's relationship with her younger brother Ben Mulock as a challenge to the critical paradigm. Mulock has been dismissed by critics from Margaret Oliphant onwards as an itinerant young man who funded his dissipations through his famous sister. New archival evidence, in the form of over 250 unpublished letters exchanged between brother and sister, suggests that their relationship was mainly collaborative and productive, and that Mulock was as earnest and hard-working as his sister. These letters suggest a more positive role for the woman writer's male relation, offering an example of shared economic and emotional structures that could support siblings throughout their careers.