Mary Cowden Clarke

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MCC was a leading nineteenth-century Shakespearean scholar, who (in collaboration with her husband, Charles Cowden Clarke ) annotated editions, compiled a concordance, and wrote a key or encyclopaedia, and on her own account produced an anthology, a book of tales, or what would now be called prequels, about the early lives of Shakespeare 's female characters, and an edition that preceded the better-known one produced by her husband. She was a self-defined professional writer who translated works of musicology, edited a magazine and published poetry, articles, stories, novels, biographies, and her own autobiography.
  • BirthName: Mary Victoria Novello
    She was named Victoria after her godfather, the Rev. William Victor Fryer .
    Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
    13

  • Nickname: Mrs. Cowden
    MCC gave this name to a persona in a dialogue who represents herself.

  • Married: Cowden Clarke
    Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
  • Pseudonyms: M. H.
    She assumed this name because her father had once acted in amateur theatricals as Mr. Howard.
    Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
    48
    ; Harry Wandsworth Shortfellow
    British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.

  • Indexed: Clarke, Mary Cowden; Cowden-Clarke, Mary
    She herself generally used the hyphenated form of both married names; many library catalogues today list her as Clarke.

Milestones

22 June 1809

Mary Victoria Novello (later MCC ) was born in the same house as her father before her: 240 Oxford Street (then Oxford Road), London.
Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
3

1850-2

Mary Cowden Clarke published the work for which she is principally remembered, The Girlhood of Shakespeare 's Heroines; in a series of fifteen tales.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
1208 (21 December 1850)

1896

Mary Cowden Clarke published My Long Life, An Autobiographic Sketch, with illustrations including portraits.
qtd. in
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

12 January 1898

MCC died at Villa Novello, Genoa.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2025, 22 vols. plus supplements.

Biography

Birth and Family

22 June 1809

Mary Victoria Novello (later MCC ) was born in the same house as her father before her: 240 Oxford Street (then Oxford Road), London.
Clarke, Mary Cowden. My Long Life. Dodd, Mead, 1896.
3