Dinah Maria Mulock's Silence and Queer Representation

Abstract

In this paper, I argue that the often-overlooked Victorian author, Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, needs to be re-assessed as a representative of the queer potential of nineteenth-century texts. Her life and work pose several complex questions about homoeroticism in the Victorian era, while at the same time inaugurating a trend within male homosexual representation that is still relevant. To properly understand how Dinah Mulock managed to do this it is first important to consider her context and life. This consideration is carried out here through a methodological approach consisting on both contemporary and Victorian critical assessments of Mulock’s life, and on the analysis of her novels and other cultural texts related to it.