Charles Cowden Clarke | |
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 Portrait of Charles Cowden Clarke,c. 1840 | |
| Born | Charles Cowden Clarke (1787-12-15)15 December 1787 Enfield, England |
| Died | 13 March 1877(1877-03-13) (aged 89) Genoa, Italy |
| Occupation | Author |
| Spouse | |
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Charles Cowden Clarke (15 December 1787 – 13 March 1877) was an English author who was best known for his books onShakespeare. He was also known for his compilation of poems as well as his edition ofThe Canterbury Tales, which was rendered into prose and widely used.
Clarke's father, John Clarke, was a schoolmaster in Clarke's Academy inEnfield Town, among whose pupils wasJohn Keats. Charles Clarke taught Keats his letters and encouraged his love of poetry. He knewCharles andMary Lamb, and afterwards became acquainted withShelley,Leigh Hunt,Coleridge,Hazlitt,Felix Mendelssohn,William Macready,Charles Dickens,[1]Douglas Jerrold, andWilliam Godwin.[2] Clarke became a music publisher in partnership withAlfred Novello, and married in 1828 his partner's sister,Mary Victoria (1809–1898), the eldest daughter ofVincent Novello, who was to become known for her Concordance to Shakespeare, a work that she began in the year following their marriage.[3]
Cowden Clarke published many useful books, and edited the text forJohn Nichol's edition of the British poets. His most important work consisted of lectures delivered between 1834 and 1856 on Shakespeare and other literary subjects. Some of the more notable series were published, among them beingShakespeare's Characters, chiefly those subordinate (1863), andMolière's Characters (1865). In 1859 he published a volume of original poems,Carmina Minima.[4]
In 1832, the cricketerJohn Nyren began a collaboration with Clarke, who recorded Nyren's reminiscences of theHambledon era and published them serially in a periodical calledThe Town. The following year, the series of articles appeared asThe Cricketers of My Time as part of an instructional book entitledThe Young Cricketer's Tutor. It became a major source for the history and personalities of Georgian cricket and also came to be regarded as the first classic in cricket's now rich literary history.[5][6]
For some years after their marriage the Cowden Clarkes lived with the Novellos in London. In 1849 Vincent Novello with his wife moved toNice, where he was joined by the Cowden Clarkes in 1856. After his death they lived atGenoa at the "Villa Novello." They collaborated inThe Shakespeare Key, unlocking the Treasures of his Style ... (1879), and in an edition of Shakespeare for MessrsCassell, which was issued in weekly parts, and completed in 1868. It was reissued in 1886 asCassell's Illustrated Shakespeare. Charles Clarke died atGenoa, and his wife survived him until 12 January 1898. Among Mrs. Cowden Clarke's other works may be mentionedThe Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines (3 vols., 1850–1852), and a translation ofHector Berlioz'sTreatise upon Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration (1856).[4]
SeeRecollections of Writers (1878), a joint work by the Clarkes containing letters and reminiscences of their many literary friends; and Mary Cowden Clarke's autobiography,My Long Life (1896). A charming series of letters (1850–1861), addressed by her to an American admirer of her work, Robert Balmanno, was edited by Anne Upton Nettleton asLetters to an Enthusiast (Chicago, 1902).[4]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Clarke, Charles Cowden".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 443–444. Works by or aboutCharles Cowden Clarke atWikisource