Clarke, Rebecca (1833 - 1906)

Genre: Children's Literature, General Fiction

Rebecca Clarke, considered America's first writer for children because she wrote for children and not for small adults, was born in Norridgewock on Feb. 22, 1833. She lived there most of her life, except for a 10-year period from 1851-1861 when she was a school teacher in Indiana. She also wintered in Baltimore, Florida, and California.

Clarke's first story was sold to the Memphis Daily Appeal, written under the pseudonym 'Sophie May.' Subsequent stories were sold to Little Pilgrim, Boston Congregationalist, and Merry's Museum.

Clarke purchased and donated the building for the first Norridgewock public library shortly before her death, on Aug. 16, 1906.

Selected Bibliography

Adult Books

  • Drone's Honey (1887)
  • Pauline Wyman (1897)

Cildren's Books (written under the pen name Sophie May)

Little Prudy Series:

  • Little Prudy (1864)
  • Sister Susy (1864)
  • Captain Horace (1864)
  • Cousin Grace (1865)
  • Fairy Book (1865)
  • Dotty Dimple (1868)

Dottie Dimple Series:

  • Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's (1868)
  • Dotty Dimple Out West (1868)
  • Dotty Dimple at Home (1868)
  • Dotty Dimple at Play (1869)
  • Dotty Dimple at School (1869)
  • Dotty Dimple Flyaway (1869)

Little Prudy's Flyaway:

  • Little Folks Astray (1870)
  • Prudy Keeping House (1870)
  • Aunt Madge's Story (1871)
  • Little Grandmother (1872)
  • Little Grandfather (1873)
  • Miss Thistledown (1873)

Flaxie Frizzle:

  • Flaxie Frizzle (1876)
  • Doctor Papa (1877)
  • Little Pitchers (1878)
  • Twin Cousins (1880)
  • Flaxie's Kittyleen (1883) also called simply Kittyleen
  • Flaxie Growing Up (1884)

Little Prudy's Children:

  • Wee Lucy (1894)
  • Jimmy Boy (1895)
  • Kyzie Dunlee (1895)
  • Wee Lucy's Secret (1899)
  • Jimmy, Lucy, and All (1900)
  • Lucy in Fairyland (1901)

Quinnebasset Girls:

  • Doctor's Daughter (1871)
  • Our Helen (1874)
  • Asbury Twins (1875)
  • Quinnebasset Girls (1877)
  • Janet (1882)
  • In Old Quinnebasset (1891)
  • Joy Bells (1903)

Non-Series (for Children?)

  • The Campion Diamonds (1897)

Selected Resources

  • Jeff Hollingsworth's Magnificent Mainers (1995) includes a short section on Clarke
  • Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 42: American Writers for Children Before 1900 (1985) has a long biographical section about her.
  • Rebecca Clarke texts at Project Gutenberg