Porter, Charlotte Endymion and Helen Archibald Clarke

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Porter, Charlotte Endymion and Helen Archibald Clarke

American writers who founded the literary magazine Poet Lore . Name variations: (joint pseudonym) H.A.C.

Clarke, Helen Archibald (1860–1926). Born Helen Archibald Clarke on November 13, 1860, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died of cardiac disease on February 8, 1926, in Boston, Massachusetts; daughter of Hugh Archibald Clarke (a professor of music) and Jane (Searle) Clarke; studied music as a special student at the University of Pennsylvania; never married; lived with Charlotte Endymion Porter; no children.

Selected writings:

Apparitions (1892); Browning's Italy (1907); Browning's England (1908); A Child's Guide to Mythology (1908); Longfellow's Country (1909); Hawthorne's Country (1910); The Poets' New England (1911); Browning and His Century (1912).

Porter, Charlotte Endymion (1857–1942). Born Helen Charlotte Porter on January 6, 1857, in Towanda, Pennsylvania; died on January 16, 1942, in Melrose, Massachusetts; daughter of Henry Clinton Porter (aphysician) and Elisa Eleanor (Betts) Porter; graduated from Wells College, Aurora, New York, and studied briefly at the Sorbonne in Paris; never married; lived with Helen Archibald Clarke; no children.

Selected writings:

(editor) First Folio Edition of Shakespeare (40 vols., 1903–13); Lips of Music (1919).

Charlotte Endymion Porter and Helen Archibald Clarke, born three years apart and raised in similar economic and social backgrounds, met in the mid-1880s and spent the next 40-odd years in a personal and literary partnership. Porter, born in Towanda, Pennsylvania, on January 6, 1857, and christened Helen Charlotte, was the only daughter among three children of Henry Clinton Porter, a physician, and Elisa Betts Porter . She later dropped the name "Helen" in favor of "Charlotte," and adopted "Endymion" (the name of a grandson of Zeus in Greek mythology) as her middle name. She graduated from Wells College in Aurora, New York, and later studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1883, after moving to Philadelphia, Porter was named editor of Shakespeariana, a journal sponsored by the Shakespeare Society of New York. Clarke, a Philadelphia native born on November 13, 1860, was the only child of Hugh Archibald Clarke, a professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania, and Jane Searle Clarke . Although the University of Pennsylvania officially accepted no women as students, her father managed to secure her admission as a special student, and in 1883 she was granted a certificate in music. Some time later, she submitted an article about the music of Shakespeare for publication in Shakespeariana. After its acceptance Clarke and Porter met and discovered that they had much in common; in addition to their mutual interest in Shakespeare, both shared an admiration for the writings of poet Robert Browning and were founding members of the Browning Society of Philadelphia. They soon became extremely close, and later would cement their bond by exchanging rings.

In 1887, Porter resigned her position as editor of Shakespeariana, disappointed when her proposals for expanding the scope of the periodical were blocked by its publisher. She next worked briefly as editor of the Ethical Record while mapping plans with Clarke to launch a new literary magazine. In January 1889, the two brought out the first issue of Poet Lore, a monthly magazine "devoted to Shakespeare, Browning, and the Comparative Study of Literature," according to its original mission statement. In 1891, Poet Lore was moved from Philadelphia to Boston, where Porter and Clarke lived together, when publisher Dana Estes offered the magazine free office space in exchange for free advertising in every issue. The audience for Poet Lore, strong from the outset, continued to grow, although publishing problems forced its founders to transform the journal from a monthly to a quarterly in 1896. Much of the literary criticism and commentary that appeared in the pages of Poet Lore was written by Porter and Clarke, occasionally signed "H.A.C." ("Helen and Charlotte").

In the mid-1890s, the scope of Poet Lore began to broaden. Over the years, Porter and Clarke introduced the magazine's readers to the writings of emerging European writers including Paul Bourget, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Selma Lagerlöf , Maxim Gorky, Gerhart Hauptmann, Björnstjerne Björnson, Henrik Ibsen, and Maurice Maeterlinck. In time, the journal also began to examine the literature of the Middle East, India, and the Far East. Poet Lore never served as much of a showcase for American writing, although it did occasionally include reviews of such American and Canadian writers as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Bliss Carman, and Edward Rowland, as well as the work of essayist Gamaliel Bradford, Jr. Nonetheless, Porter and Clarke did a good deal to help promote artistic creativity in the United States. They were members of Julia Ward Howe 's Boston Authors' Club, and founded the American Music Society, of which Clarke later became president, and the American Drama Society (later the Drama League of America), which was presided over by Porter. Both women also were active members of Boston's Browning Society, in which they served in various capacities, and published a number of works on Browning as well as a six-volume edition of the poems of Elizabeth Barrett Browning .

As their involvement in endeavors outside Poet Lore expanded, Porter and Clarke decided in 1903 to sell the magazine to Richard G. Badger, although they continued as its editors through World War I. Among the outside projects on which Porter worked were the First Folio Edition of Shakespeare (1903–13), a 40-volume collection she edited, and a book of poetry, Lips of Music (1919), much of it about love between women. Clarke wrote a number of books exploring the lives and work of some of her favorite authors and poets, including Browning's Italy (1907), Browning's England (1908), A Child's Guide to Mythology (1908), Longfellow's Country (1909), Hawthorne's Country (1910), The Poets' New England (1911), and Browning and His Century (1912).

After Clarke's death at age 65 on February 8, 1926, Porter spent much of her time at Ardensea, a cottage on Maine's Isle au Haut in Penobscot Bay where the two had summered. She was supported financially by friends in the closing years of her life, and lived her last few months in a nursing home in Melrose, Massachusetts, where she died at the age of 85 on January 16, 1942. The ashes of both women were scattered over their beloved Isle au Haut in Penobscot Bay.