George Lillie Craik
George Lillie Craik (1798–1866) was a Scottish writer and literary critic. He was born in Kennoway, Fife, the eldest of three brothers; their father was the local schoolmaster, and his brothers included Henry Craik and James Craik. He studied at the University of St Andrews and moved to London in 1824, where he wrote for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1849 he became a professor of English literature and history in Belfast.
Craik wrote many books, including The New Zealanders (1830), The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties (1831), History of British Commerce (1844), and History of English Literature and the English Language (1861). He also coauthored The Pictorial History of England and wrote about Edmund Spenser and Francis Bacon.
His Sketches of Popular Tumults (1837) described the Gordon Riots in vivid terms, noting how some rioters died from drink and others in the flames; this may have influenced Charles Dickens in Barnaby Rudge (1841).
The author Herman Melville drew on Craik’s description of Te Pēhi Kupe in The New Zealanders as inspiration for Queequeg in Moby-Dick. Craik’s second daughter was the novelist Georgiana M. Craik.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 10:09 (CET).