Crowe, Catherine (Stevens) I Mrs. Crowe l, 1800?-1876, novelist, writer on the supernatural. Contributed to Chambers's, Ladies' Companion, Once a Week, and other periodicals. Published plays, children's books, novels, and collections of stories. Best known of the novels were Adventures of Susan Hopley, 1841, and The Story of Lilly Dawson, 1847. Best known of the collections of stories was The Night Side of Nature; or, Ghosts and Ghost Seers, 1848, accounts of supernatural happenings, prophetic dreams, presentiments, etc., gathered from many sources and animated in the retelling by Mrs. Crowe's belief in what she related: the book went through several editions; the title, recorded J. A. Crowe mischievously (Reminiscences, p. 74), Douglas Jerrold once paraphrased "in a way I cannot repeat." In 1859 published Spiritualism, and the Age We Live In. Well known in literary circles of Edinburgh and London; correspondent of Sydney Smith; conjectured to be author of Vestiges of ... Creation during the time that the authorship of the book was a matter of speculation. For an amusing instance of her quasi-acceptance of the authorship, see Lehmann, Ancestors and Friends, p. 125.
Read more...