SARA J. CLARKE,
(GRACE GREENWOOD.)
Miss Clarke was born in Pompey, an inland town in the county of Onondaga, New York. Here, and in the neighbouring town of Fabius, she spent the greater portion of her childhood. During her early girlhood she resided with her parents, at Rochester, N. Y., but at the age of nineteen removed with them to New Brighton, Penn., which has since been her nominal home, though perhaps the larger part of her time is spent with her friends, in New England, at Washington, and Philadelphia.
Miss Clarke wrote verse at an early age, and published under her own name; but, on coming out as a prose-writer, being doubtful of the experiment, she shielded herself behind a nom de plume. Her success has thus far greatly exceeded the expectations of her most sanguine friends. Yet, in a life of constant change and excitement, of extensive and pleasant social relations, she has not been able to concentrate her powers on any important work, but has given them at best but imperfect exercise in a series of magazine articles, brief sketches, light critiques, and lighter letters.
A selection from her prose writings, making a volume of over four hundred pages, entitled “Greenwood Leaves,” was published in the fall of 1849. This work has reached a third edition. In the autumn of the following year was brought out a collection of her poems, a volume of 190 pages; also, a volume of original juvenile stories, entitled “History of My Pets,” both of which publications have reached a second edition. Another work by Miss Clarke, much similar in character to “Greenwood Leaves,” is now in press.
Her father, Doctor Thaddeus Clarke, formerly a physician of some eminence, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, of a good old Puritan stock. He is yet living. Her mother, a native of Brooklyn, Connecticut, is of
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