Catherine Crowe

Born Catherine Ann Stevens in Borough Green, Kent, she was an English novelist, playwright, and writer of social and supernatural stories. She later became Catherine Crowe after marrying army officer John Crowe, and she spent much of her life in Scotland as well as England.

Crowe wrote across several genres, but she is especially remembered for The Night-side of Nature (1848), a widely discussed collection of accounts of apparitions and other strange experiences. She also wrote the popular novel Susan Hopley; or, Circumstantial Evidence, along with plays, shorter fiction, and books for children.

Her appeal today comes from the way she mixed lively storytelling with curiosity about the unexplained. Even when writing about ghosts and visions, she often kept one foot in ordinary life, which helps her work feel both human and unsettling.