Ellen Mary Clerke

Sister of Agnes Mary Clerke, journalist and novelist, b. at Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland, 1840; d. in London, 2 March 1906. A gifted and accomplished writer, she was for many years an editorial writer for the London "Tablet". Her knowledge of the intricacies of the religious and political problems of Continental Europe was remarkable. A seven years' stay in Italy made her intimately familiar not only with its language and literature, but also with every phase of its public life. She contributed a series of stories, perfect in Italian phrase, idiom, and local colour, to periodicals in Florence. Her pamphlets, "Jupiter and His System" and "The Planet Venus", were valuable additions to the literature of popular astronomy. In 1899 she published "Fable and Song in Italy", a collection of essays and studies and specimens of Italian poetry rendered into English in the original metres. A novel, "Flowers of Fire" (1902), was her last work.