Maine Women in History Rediscovering Their Lives and Legacies

Rebecca Clarke, considered American’s first writer for children because of the way she wrote for children and not for small adults, was born Feb. 22, 1833, in Norridgewock the daughter of Asa and Sophia (Bates) Clarke.

She lived in the Norridgewock house of her birth most of her life, except for a 10-year period from 1851 to 1861 when she was a school teacher in Indiana. She had to resign from that post because of growing deafness, according to Jeff Hollingsworth’s “Maginficent Mainers.”

Clarke also wintered in Baltimore, Florida and California. She never married and had no children of her own, but she based her knowledge of children on her years as a teacher and from contact with her nieces and nephews. She lived with a spinster sister, Sarah J. Clarke, who wrote children’s books under the name of Penn Shirley, although she was not as successful as her sister.

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

Clarke wrote 45 books from 1861 to 1903, of which 37 were series books, and was considered the “Charles Dickens of the Nursery,” Hollingsworth wrote. At least two of her books were for adults but were not very successful: Drone’s Honey (1887) and Pauline Wyman (1897). Her children’s books (written under the pen name Sophie May) include the Little Prudy series; the Dottie Dimple series; Little Prudy’s Flyaway series; Flaxie Frizzle series; Little Prudy’s Children series; and the Quinnebasset Girls series.

Just before she died on Aug. 16, 1906, Rebecca Clarke bought a building she donated to the town of Norridgewock for a public library. The Norridgewock Free Public Library is in the same building today. It and the Sophie May house are both on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources: Maine Historical Society’s online museum; “Magnificent Mainers” by Jeff Hollingsworth, Covered Bridge Press, North Attleborough, Mass., 1995; www.mainememory.net; Waterboro Public Library’s Maine Writer’s Index at www.waterborolibrary.org. Not all books by the authors listed in the index are available at the Waterboro Library. Maine writers who want to be listed on the index are invited to e-mail librarian@waterborolibrary.org.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke, writing as Sophie May, wrote popular children’s books in the late 1800s. She created the “Dottie Dimple” series and other titles.

Susy’s Christmas (right) from the book, “Sister Susy” by Sophie May. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1865. From the collections of the Skowhegan History House and the Maine Historical Society. These images and thousands of others spanning Maine history are on the Maine Memory Network, (www.mainememory.net) Maine’s digital museum developed by the Maine Historical Society.

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