Helen Craik (c. 1751 – 11 June 1825) was a Scottish poet and novelist, and a correspondent of

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who hav ...

. She praised him for being a "native genius, gay, unique and strong" in an introductory poem to his Glenriddell Manuscripts.

Early life

Helen Craik was born at

Arbigland Arbigland in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, lies on the coast of the Solway Firth, to the south-east of Kirkbean. It is the birthplace of John Paul Jones, the United States' first well-known naval co ...

Kirkbean Kirkbean ( gd, Cille Bheathain) is a Scottish village and civil parish on the Solway Firth, in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire and council area of Dumfries and Galloway. In the 2001 census, the four small villages making up the parish ...

in the historical county of

Kirkcudbrightshire Kirkcudbrightshire ( ), or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative county ...

, probably in 1751, as one of the six legitimate children of William Craik (1703–1798), a laird keen to improve a large estate of relatively poor land, and his wife Elizabeth (died 1787), daughter of William Stewart of

New Abbey New Abbey ( gd, An Abaid Ùr) is a village in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is south of Dumfries. The summit of the prominent hill Criffel is to the south. History The village has a wealth ...

, also near

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; sco, Dumfries; from gd, Dùn Phris ) is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is located near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth about by road from the ...

. The naval captain

John Paul Jones John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...

(1747–1792), who played a prominent part in founding the US navy, was also born at Arbigland. He was rumoured to be Helen Craik's father's illegitimate son. Suppositions that one of her sisters was the novelist

Catherine Cuthbertson Catherine Cuthbertson (c. 1775 – June 1842) was an English-language novelist published in London in the early 19th century. She may also have written an unpublished 1803 play under the name "Miss Cuthbertson". Unknowns Cuthbertson's origins ...

have not been substantiated. Craik was later to write an account of her father's life and agricultural innovations in the form of two letters to ''The Farmer's Magazine'', published in 1811.

Burns

Craik became a correspondent of Robert Burns. Two of his letters to her have survived. The first, dated 9 August 1790 and written from Ellisland, accompanied manuscript copies of two of his "late Pieces". He also wrote to her expressing admiration for a poem of hers, "Helen", which has since been lost, as has much of her other poetry. A later generation saw "Wertherism" in her poetry, in the sense that its sentimentalism was influenced by

Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...

epistolary novel An epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of letters. The term is often extended to cover novels that intersperse documents of other kinds with the letters, most commonly diary entries and newspaper clippings, and sometimes considered ...

'' The Sorrows of Werther'' (1774, rev. 1787). Craik was also a friend of the fellow poet

Maria Riddell Maria Banks Riddell (née Woodley; 1772–1808) was a West Indies-born poet, anthologist, naturalist, editor and travel writer, who was resident in Scotland and Wales. Robert Burns paid tribute to her as "a votary of the Muses". Riddel was ...

,''The Feminist Companion to Literature in English'', eds Virginia Blain, Patricia Clements and Isobel Grundy (London: Batsford, 1990), pp. 246–247. who was a niece by marriage to Burns's patron

Robert Riddell Captain Robert Riddell (1755–1794), Laird of Friar's Carse, near Dumfries. A friend of Robert Burns, who made him a collection of his poems which later became famous, and wrote a poem 'Sonnet On The Death Of Robert Riddell' in memory of him ...

, to whom Craik addressed two poems that survive in manuscript.

Cumberland

However, a breach may have appeared in the Craik family over the purported suicide of a groom on her father's estate. He was locally thought to have been engaged to marry Helen Craik and murdered for that reason by a member of her family. Whether this was true or not, Craik moved abruptly in 1792 from Arbigland to

Flimby Flimby is an English coastal village and former civil parish in the Allerdale district in Cumbria. It was historically in Cumberland. It currently forms part of the parish of Maryport and the Flimby ward of Allerdale Council. It is included in t ...

Hall,

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

, which belonged to relatives of hers, and stayed there for the rest of her life.

Novels

If true, those dramatic events are echoed in the five novels of hers published anonymously between 1796 and 1805 by the firm of

Minerva Press Minerva Press was a publishing house, noted for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction in the late 18th century and early 19th century. It was established by William Lane (c. 1745–1814) at No 33 Leadenhall Street, Lon ...

, best known for sentimental and

Gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes called Gothic horror in the 20th century, is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name is a reference to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages, which was characteristic of the settings of ea ...

. One of them, ''Adelaide de Narbonne'' (1800), has been called "perhaps the most impressive" of novels of opinion "in terms of its integration of plot and politics." Some parallels to Craik's novels have been found in

Fanny Burney Frances Burney (13 June 1752 – 6 January 1840), also known as Fanny Burney and later Madame d'Arblay, was an English satirical novelist, diarist and playwright. In 1786–1790 she held the post as "Keeper of the Robes" to Charlotte of Mecklen ...

's novel ''The Wanderer'', set in 1793 and written in the 1790s and intermittently up to its publication in 1814. "Like Burney, Craik does not ultimately support the French Revolution (though she creates some genial revolutionary characters like Corday n ''Julia de St. Pierre'', 1796, but rather removes her characters 'from the increasing anarchy prevalent in France' to 'the more peaceful island of Great Britain'" (p. 368). ''Julia de Saint Pierre'' is dedicated to a likewise anonymous family friend. It has a heroine who survives victimization by a degraded mother, by the mother's lover, and by a young man who unexpectedly betrays her. ''Henry of Northumberland, or The Hermit's Cell'' (1800), with a gloomy medieval background, is the only one of the five not set in her own time. ''Adelaide de Narbonne'' turns the historical

Charlotte Corday Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 – 17 July 1793), known as Charlotte Corday (), was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who w ...

, assassin of

Jean-Paul Marat Jean-Paul Marat (; born Mara; 24 May 1743 – 13 July 1793) was a French political theorist, physician, and scientist. A journalist and politician during the French Revolution, he was a vigorous defender of the ''sans-culottes'', a radical ...

, into a rational republican. ''Stella of the North, or The Foundling of the Ship'' (1802, set in her native

Dumfriesshire Dumfriesshire or the County of Dumfries or Shire of Dumfries (''Siorrachd Dhùn Phris'' in Gaelic) is a historic county and registration county in southern Scotland. The Dumfries lieutenancy area covers a similar area to the historic county. I ...

)

Chawton House Chawton House is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Hampshire. It is run as a historic property and also houses the research library of The Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600–1830, using the building's connectio ...

has
PDF
of ''Stella of the North''. features two mysterious babies, one dead and one to be heroine. Her final novel was ''The Nun and her Daughter, or Memoirs of the Courville Family'' (1805).

Memorial

Craik eventually inherited a half-share in the Flimby estate, but no part of her father's at Arbigland, which went to a distant male relative, John Hamilton. She died unmarried at Flimby Hall on 11 June 1825. Her obituaries and her memorial in the village church call her a published author in English and French (works in the latter have not survived) and a philanthropist to the poor, a theme that appears in her novels.

References

External links

*The text of ''Stella of the North'' (1802) in full
Retrieved 29 June 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Craik, Helen 1751 births 1825 deaths 18th-century British women writers 19th-century British women writers 18th-century Scottish writers 19th-century Scottish writers Scottish novelists People from Allerdale Robert Burns