Best known work

• The Night Side of Nature: or of Ghosts and Ghost Seers, 1848

Other well known work(s)

• The Adventures of Susan Hopley, 1841
• The Story of Lilly Dawson, 1847

Genres

• Fiction - Novels
• Fiction - Short Stories

Nom de plume

None

Social class

Upper class

Parental background

Wealthy, trade background. Samuel Brown wrote that Crowe “was born and bred amid the sheer indifference of the frivolous classes, idealess, feelingless,Godless” (Larken, 28).

At publication of best known work

• Age: 58
• Marital status: Separated
• Number of children: 1

Physical description

A somewhat flamboyant middle aged lady who dressed in colourful clothes and at one time had one drooping eye! (with thanks to Ruth Heholt for this description)

Did you know?

In 1854 Crowe was found wandering the streets of Edinburgh, naked and believing she was invisible. Charles Dickens somewhat nastily reported that Crowe had gone “stark mad and stark naked” (Letters of Charles Dickens, 285). She recovered completely from this psychotic episode and continued writing.

Additional information

All Crowe’s novels and many of her other writings are available free. "Speaking of Seeing Ghosts: Visions of the Supernatural in the Tales of Catherine Crowe" by Ruth Heholt. In Ghosts - A Book on the (Nearly) Invisible: Spectral Phenomena in Literature and Media, edited by Maria Fleischhack and Elmar Schenkel. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang (2016), available free. An account of Crowe's naked episode can be found.