Starting life as a publisher's clerk in Paternoster Row, he subsequently acted as amanuensis to Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and began writing for Bentley's Miscellany.
Ambitious to become a dramatist, he took to the stage, making his first appearance at York in 1840 and his London debut soon after at Fanny Kelly's Theatre in Soho.
Frederick Robson produced and played in Craven's domestic drama The Chimney Corner at the Olympic Theatre, opening on 21 February 1861.
[1][4] Craven designed for Robson the title-character in Milky White, which was first produced at the Prince of Wales's Theatre, Liverpool, opening on 20 June 1864.
Robson's sudden death in August altered Craven's plans, and he himself sustained the title-role when the piece was brought out at the Strand on 28 September of that year.
[1] "The author", remarked The Daily Telegraph (29 September 1864), "has not only to be congratulated on the literary power and constructive skill with which he has worked out an exceedingly original idea, but he has also to be complimented on the cleverness with which he has embodied the effective character who is the hero of the story so happily imagined.
The writing abounds in quaint turns of expression, some of them so daringly tipped with verbal flippancies that the serious situations are occasionally endangered by their utterance.
"[4] In the dual role of actor and dramatist Craven scored again at the New Royalty on 17 October 1866, when Meg's Diversion opened, with himself as Jasper, the play running 330 nights.
His last play Too True, an historical drama, was produced at the Duke's, opening on 22 January 1876, and in this he made his final appearance on the stage.
[1] He was described in 1880: "Mr Craven is a genuine humorist, and contrives to blend the pathetic and comic sides of human nature in a manner that places him in the front rank of living actors.