Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/456

 In 1891 she published in Mr. Fisher Unwin's 'Pseudonym Library' her first book, 'Some Emotions and a Moral.' The epigrammatic style and lightly cynical flavour ensured a popular success. In England alone 6000 copies were sold within a year, and over 40,000 in her lifetime. In this volume Mrs. Craigie first adopted the pseudonym of John Oliver Hobbes, to which she adhered throughout her career. It was a combination of her father and son's name of John, of Cromwell's Christian name, and of the homely surname of the great philosopher whose severe dialectic she admired. In May 1892 there followed her second book of like texture, 'The Sinner's Comedy,' which was sketched, she wrote, 'under the strain of unspeakable grief and anxiety.' Thenceforth Mrs. Craigie wrote incessantly. 'A Study in Temptations' (1893). 'A Bundle of Life' (1894), and 'The 'Gods, Some Mortals, and Lord Wickenham' (1895), which ran serially through the 'Pall Mall Budget,' failed to win the popularity of her first volume, whilst 'The Herb Moon : a Fantasia' (1896) was a comparative failure. Yet collectively these novels established her position as a brilliant observer and critic of current social life.

At her father's house she gathered round her a large literary and musical circle, and was a welcome figure in fashionable London society. She frequented theatres and concert rooms and took an active part in philanthropic and literary movements, serving as president of the Society of Women Journalists in 1895-6. Despite weak health her energy seemed inexhaustible, but her occasional withdrawal for religious meditation to the Convent of the Assumption in Kensington Square apparently provided her with adequate rest.

Friends encouraged a wish to try her fortune in drama, and under the influence of the modern French theatre she assiduously sought the suffrages of English playgoers with varying results. Her 'Journeys end in Lovers meeting,' a 'one-act proverb,' was produced at Daly's Theatre (June 1895) with Miss Ellen Terry, Mr. Forbes Robertson, and William Terriss in the three parts ; it was first printed in 'Tales about Temperaments' (1901). The theme of a comedy which she next planned for Sir Henry Irving failed to attract the actor, and she converted the draft into a novel, 'The School for Saints' (1897), which proved a more serious effort in psychology than she had yet essayed. But her zeal for drama was undiminished. To her gratification, 'The Ambassador,' a comedy by her in four acts, was produced by (Sir) George Alexander at St. James's Theatre on 2 June 1898, and ran through the season. Witty dialogue atoned for the slenderness and some incoherence in the plot and characterisation. In the same year she finished a more serious dramatic effort, 'Osbern and Ursyne,' a tragedy in verse, which was first published in Lady Randolph Churchill's Anglo-Saxon Review.' In 1899 (Sir) George Alexander produced 'A Repentance,' a vague dramatic study of character which was based on an incident in the Carlist wars, and was ill received. Another rebuff attended the production of her comedy 'The Wisdom of the Wise,' which came out at St. James's Theatre on 22 Nov. 1900. Her next effort, 'The Bishop's Move,' in which Murray Carson collaborated, was produced with popular acceptance at the Garrick Theatre (1902), Mr. Arthur Bourchier and Miss Violet Vanbrugh assuming the chief roles. But the success proved fleeting. A fanciful drama in four acts, 'The Flute of Pan,' after successful production by Miss Olga Nethersoleat the Queen's Theatre, Manchester, on 21 April 1904, was unfavourably received at the first London performance at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 12 Nov. 1904. The play was quickly withdrawn and Mrs. Craigie converted it into a novel.

Meanwhile Mrs, Craigie was very busy in many other directions. She pursued her earlier path in fiction in 'The Serious Wooing' (1901) and 'Love and the Soul Hunters' (1902). In 'Robert Orange,' a novel which appeared in July 1902, she ingeniously elaborated the psychological study which she began in 'The School for Saints.' The hero, Robert Orange, was a deliberately idealised portrait of Disraeli, in whose career and character she developed an intense interest. The statesman also figured in the book under his own name in his historical guise. 'The Vineyard,' her penultimate novel, ran serially through the 'Pall Mall Magazine' and was issued inde- pendently in 1904. She was then at work on her final novel, 'The Dream and the Business' (issued in August 1906), in which she contrasted the Roman catholic with the nonconformist temper of mind.

Requests for sketches or essays at the same time were growing. Travelling constantly for pleasure, rest, or the local colour of her novels and plays, she repeatedly described such experiences in the press. Among her most intimate friends was Miss Mary Leiter of Washington, who married Lord Curzon in 1895. At the Delhi durbar in January 1903 she was the guest of Lord