Background

Rebecca Sophia Clarke was born on February 22, 1833 in a white-columned, red brick house, with a background of hills, in Norridgewock, Maine, United States on the Kennebec River, and there she made her home during her seventy-three years of life. Her parents were Asa and Sophia (Bates) Clarke, both descended from pioneer settlers of that portion of the Massachusetts Colony which later became Maine.

Education

Clarke attended the Norridgewock Female Academy where she was considered a precocious child, and her journal, kept between the ages of nine and eleven, contains comments on sermons, debates, and lectures on astronomy and phrenology. An early tendency to verse-making was discouraged by her mother, for which she was afterward grateful. Tutors of Greek and Latin completed her formal education.

Career

At eighteen Clarke secured a position to teach in Evansville, Indiana, the home of a married sister. Growing deafness caused her resignation and her return to her birthplace, where, at the age of twenty-eight, she wrote her first article, at the request of a friend in Memphis, Tennessee. Her first stories were written for the Little Pilgrim, edited by Grace Greenwood, and became the Little Prudy series, which when published in book form brought her only fifty dollars a volume. Other stories were written for the Congregationalist. When her Dotty Dimple books were ready for publication, she was offered a hundred dollars a volume, but by this time she had become more sophisticated and secured a ten per cent basis.

She also wrote several novels for adults, among them Drone’s Honey (1887) and Pauline Wyman (1897), met with slight success. The characters in her stories were all drawn from life, the adults from Norridgewock people, the children from her own nephews and nieces, and Norridgewock furnished nearly all her settings. The boys and girls of her books are natural, fun-loving, sometimes naughty beings, instead of the stiff perfections of most juvenile literature of her time. Thomas Wentworth Higginson said: “Real genius came in with Little Prudy. ” Children of a later day, however, care little for Sophie May’s books, with their lack of plot, their “baby talk, ” and their obvious moralizing.

Rebecca and her sister, Sarah J. Clarke, with whom she lived, were concerned in all activities for the welfare of their native town. They often spent their winters in Baltimore, or California, or Europe, but the summers always brought them back to Norridgewock. Shortly before her death in the old family home, Rebecca Clarke purchased and presented to Norridgewock a handsome building for a public library.

Achievements

• Rebecca Sophia Clarke was one of the first authors to write stories for children that depicted them realistically. She wrote over forty books of which the most successful, in six volumes each, were: Little Prudy Stories (1863 - 1865) and Dotty Dimple Stories (1867 - 1869).

Works

More photos

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  • Drones Honey (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from Drones Honey And then, finding the giant qu...)

  • Flaxie Growing Up

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Kittyleen

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • Fairy Book

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Works of Rebecca Sophia Clarke

    (16 works of Rebecca Sophia Clarke American author of chil...)

  • Jimmy Boy

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Doctor Papa

    ( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

  • Little Prudy's Cousin Grace

    (Leopold Classic Library is delighted to publish this clas...)

  • Sister Susy (1864)

    (This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)

  • Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple

    (Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple. This book, "Little Prudy's D...)

Personality

Rebecca Clarke was in her youth considered beautiful; she had wavy black hair, very dark blue eyes, and an expression which showed kindly interest in others and zest in life on her own account.

Connections

Father:

Asa Clarke

Mother:

Sophia (Bates) Clarke

Sister:

Sarah J. Clarke

References

• Children of the Series and How They Grew: or A Century of Heroines & Heroes, Romantic, Comic, Moral