╨PARA ╚PAR@ ` └TEXT ` ▓Clarke, Helen Archibald and Porter, Charlotte Endymion1860╨1926 and 1857╨1942writers, editors and literary criticsBorn in Philadelphia on November 13, 1860, Helen Clarke was of a deeply musical family, and music early became an abiding love. She attended the University of Pennsylvania (where her father, Hugh A. Clarke, had been professor of music since 1875) as a special student for two years, before women were formally admitted to the school, and received a certificate in music in 1883. Helen Charlotte Porter, who later adopted the middle name ╥Endymion,╙ was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania, on January 6, 1857. She graduated from Wells College in 1875, studied for a time at the Sorbonne, and in 1883 became editor of Shakespeariana, a journal published in Philadelphia by the Shakespeare Society of New York. An article on Shakespeare╒s music by Helen Clarke that was accepted for the Shakespeariana by Charlotte Porter brought the two together, and a second mutual interest in Robert Browning cemented the friendship. In 1887 Porter resigned from Shakespeariana and a short time later became editor of the Ethical Record. In January 1889, after several months of planning, the two women launched a new monthly, Poet Lore, ╥devoted to Shakespeare, Browning, and the Comparative Study of Literature.╙ The magazine found an immediate and growing audience among the proliferating literary clubs and societies across the nation, most if not all of them sharing the Victorian literary standards and interests of the editors. In 1891 they moved Poet Lore to Boston when a publisher there offered them free office space in exchange for three pages of advertising per issue. In 1896 Poet Lore became a quarterly. Much of the critical and commentary material published in the magazine was written by the editors themselves, singly or in collaboration. Its contents faithfully followed the original dedication, leaning heavily on Shakespeare and Browning studies, but over the years it also introduced to a wide American audience works (usually translated by the editors) of Ibsen, BjÜrnson, Strindberg, D╒Annunzio, LagerlÜf, Bourget, Hauptmann, Gorki, Maeterlinck, Schnitzler, Tagore, and other moderns. Little American writing found its way into Poet Lore. Clarke and Porter also published a two-volume edition of Browning╒s poems in 1896; a volume of Clever Tales, translated short stories, 1897; an edition of The Ring and the Book, 1898; a 12-volume complete edition of Browning╒s works in 1898; Browning Study Programmes, 1900; a six-volume edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning╒s works in 1900; and the 12-volume ╥Pembroke╙ edition of Shakespeare in 1912. Clarke╒s dramatization of Browning╒s Pippa Passes was staged in Boston in 1899, and Porter╒s version of his Return of the Druses was done in 1902. In 1903 they sold Poet Lore, and although they continued for many years as editors of the magazine they gave increasing time to other projects. Porter spent several years in preparing a 40-volume First Folio Edition of Shakespeare, 1903╨1913, and in 1919 published Lips of Music, a collection of verse. Clarke, who in 1892 had published a book of songs entitled Apparitions, also wrote 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, along with a number of musical cantatas and operettas for children. As well as being both long-time members and officers of the Boston Browning Society, they were active in other organizations. They founded the American Music Society, of which Clarke was president, and the American Drama Society (later the Drama League of America), of which Porter was president. Helen Clarke died in Boston on February 8, 1926, after which Charlotte Porter lived mainly at their former summer home on Isle au Haut in Penobscot Bay, Maine. She died in Melrose, Massachusetts, on January 16, 1942. µstyl ` > ! ¬ ! ¬ ! ¬ = 5¬ U 5¬ | !I Γ !I ≡ !I ï !I Ö !I / !I = !I j !I x !I | 5¬ } !I ╓ !I ▀ !I !I ' !I º !I ░ !I ▌ !I µ !I Ω 5¬ δ !I J !I W !I å !I ¢ !I ▌ !I ÷ !I
