Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie (November 3, 1867 – August 13, 1906) was an Anglo-American novelist and dramatist who wrote under the pen-name of John Oliver Hobbes.

Life

Born in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, she was the eldest daughter of the businessman John Morgan Richards

John Morgan Richards

John Morgan Richards , was an American businessman and entrepreneur who made his fortune from the promotion of patent medicines and American cigarettes in Britain...

 and his wife Laura Hortense (née Arnold). The family moved to London soon after her birth, and she was educated in London and Paris. When she was nineteen she married Reginald Walpole Craigie, by whom she had one son, John Churchill Craigie: but the marriage proved an unhappy one, and was dissolved on her petition in July 1895. She was brought up as a Nonconformist, but in 1892 was received into the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

, of which she remained a devout and serious member.

From 1900, Mrs Craigie lived and worked at her villa near her parents' home at Steephill

Steephill

Steephill is a hamlet near Ventnor, Isle of Wight, previously the location of a Victorian country estate with a castle-style mansion, Steephill Castle, which was demolished to build bungalows in the 1960s...

, Isle of Wight

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...

. The villa is now called Craigie Lodge and bears a small commemorative plaque of Mrs Craigie's time there. In 1906 she died suddenly of heart failure in London en route to a holiday in Scotland.

Work

Her first little book, the epigrammatic Some Emotions and a Moral, was published in 1891 in Mr Fisher Unwin's Pseudonym Library, and was followed by The Sinners Comedy (1892), A Study in Temptations (1893), A Bundle of Life (1894), The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham. The Herb Moon (1896), a country love story, was followed by The School for Saints (1897), with a sequel, Robert Orange (1900).

Mrs Craigie had already written a one-act proverb, Journeys end in Lovers Meeting, produced by Ellen Terry

Ellen Terry

Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....

 in 1894, and a three-act tragedy, Osbern and Ursyne, printed in the Anglo-Saxon Review

The Anglo-Saxon Review

The Anglo-Saxon Review was a quarterly miscellany edited by Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill, and published in London by John Lane. It was short lived, running from June 1899 to September 1901. Her son Winston Churchill was one of her devoted advisors during the months preceding publication...

(1899), when her successful piece, The Ambassador, was produced at the St James's Theatre

St James's Theatre

The St James's Theatre was a 1,200-seat theatre located in King Street, at Duke Street, St James's, London. The elaborate theatre was designed with a neo-classical exterior and a Louis XIV style interior by Samuel Beazley and built by the partnership of Peto & Grissell for the tenor and theatre...

 in 1898. A Repentance (one act, 1899) and The Wisdom of the Wise (1900) were produced at the same theatre, and The Flute of Pan (1904) first at Manchester and then at the Shaftesbury Theatre

Shaftesbury Theatre

The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...

; she was also part author of The Bishop's Move (Garrick Theatre

Garrick Theatre

The Garrick Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Charing Cross Road, in the City of Westminster. It opened on 24 April 1889 with The Profligate, a play by Arthur Wing Pinero. In its early years, it appears to have specialised in the performance of melodrama, and today the theatre is a...

, 1902).

Later books are The Serious Wooing (1901), Love and the Soul Hunters (1902), Tales about Temperament (1902), The Vineyard (1904).

Novels

• Some Emotions and a Moral, (1891)
• A study in Temptations, (1893)
• The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickensham, (1895)
• A Bundle of Life, (1894)
• Robert Orange, (1900)
• The Serious Wooing, (1901)
• Love and the Soul Hunters, (1902)
• The Vineyard, (1904); Flute of Pan, (1905)
• The Dream and the Business, (1906)

Plays

• Journeys End in Lovers' Meeting, (1894), for Ellen Terry
  Ellen Terry
  Dame Ellen Terry, GBE was an English stage actress who became the leading Shakespearean actress in Britain. Among the members of her famous family is her great nephew, John Gielgud....
  
  
• The Ambassador, (1898)
• A Repentance, (1899).

External links

• Catholic Encyclopedia article