Identity:

Pearl Mary Teresa Craigie was a novelist and dramatist. She wrote under the pseudonym John Oliver Hobbes. She married Reginald Walpole Craigie in 1887 but the couple later divorced. They had one son.

Life:

The daughter of John Morgan Richards, a New York merchant, she grew up in London and was encouraged by her parents to pursue her literary and musical interests. Her literary career began with articles and criticism for the periodical Life. Her first book 'Some Emotions and a Moral was published in 1891 and sold well, establishing her career as a novelist. Her other works include A Study in Temptations (1893), A Bundle of Life (1894), and The Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham (1895), and for the stage, 'The Ambassador' (1898) and 'The Bishop's Move' (1902).

Craigie was a well-known figure in fashionable literary circles. She was well-known to Whistler in the late 1880s and 1890s. She lectured and travelled widely, and was President of the Society of Women Journalists in 1895-1896.

Bibliography:

Dictionary of National Biography, on-line edition (accessed 8 June 2004).