John Halifax, Gentleman is a novel by Dinah Craik, first published in 1856. Plot summaryThe action is centred in the town of Tewkesbury, scarcely disguised by the fictional name Norton Bury, in Gloucestershire. The story is narrated by Phineas, a friend of the central character. John Halifax is an orphan, determined to make his way in the world through honest hard work. He is taken in by a tanner, Abel Fletcher, who is a Quaker, and thus meets Phineas, who is Abel's son. John eventually achieves success in business and love, and becomes a wealthy man...Dinah Maria Craik ( born Dinah Maria Mulock, also often credited as Miss Mulock or Mrs. Craik) (20 April 1826 - 12 October 1887) was an English novelist and poet. She is best remembered for her novel John Halifax, Gentleman, which presents the ideals of English middle-class life.LifeMulock was born at Stoke-on-Trent to Dinah and Thomas Mulock and raised in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, where her father was then minister of a small independent nonconformist congregation.[1] Her childhood and early youth were much affected by his unsettled fortunes, but she obtained a good education from various quarters and felt called to be a writer.[clarification needed][2]She came to London about 1846, much at the same time as two friends, Alexander Macmillan and Charles Edward Mudie. Introduced by Camilla Toulmin to Westland Marston, she rapidly made friends in London, and found great encouragement for her stories for the young. In 1865 she married George Lillie Craik, a partner with Alexander Macmillan in the publishing firm Macmillan & Company, and nephew of George Lillie Craik. They adopted a foundling baby girl, Dorothy, in 1869.At Shortlands, near Bromley, Kent, while in a period of preparation for Dorothy's wedding, she died of heart failure on 12 October 1887, aged 61. Her last words were reported to have been: "Oh, if I could live four weeks longer! but no matter, no matter!" Her final book, An Unknown Country, was published by Macmillan in 1887, the year of her death. Dorothy married Alexander Pilkington in 1887, but they divorced in 1911 and she went on to marry Captain Richards of Macmine Castle. She and Alexander had one son, John Mulock Pilkington. He married Freda Roskelly and they had a son and daughter.