Louise Clarkson Whitelock (née Sauerwein) was born in Baltimore in 1851. She was a founding member of the WLCB in 1890, and remained a member until 1897. She married George Clarkson, a Baltimore lawyer, in December of 1878. They had a daughter, Roberta, and a son, William, who both grew up to be writers! Roberta also became an illustrator like her mother, and she contributed to and illustrated her brother’s book Britanny With Bergere. Louise died in 1928.
Louise was both an author and illustrator, and published most of her works under the name L. Clarkson. She was active from 1877 to around 1898. Many of her publications are books of children’s verse, which she illustrated herself. Her most famous work appears to be Violet, with Eyes of Blue—almost all of her other publications refer to her as its author. She also published collections of poems for more grown-up audiences, including Heartsease and Happy Days, a novel titled The Shadow of John Wallace, and two collections of short stories, called A Mad Madonna and How Hindsight Met Provincialis.
The 1878 Christmastime volume of The Publishers Weekly advertises her collection of poems The Rag Fair as “The most remarkable book of the year” and “the gift book of the season.” Other publications, including an 1884 volume of Literary News, also refer to her works as ‘gift books.’ The same Publishers Weekly volume advertises one of her children’s books, Little Stay-at-Home and Her Friends, as “a charming gift book for the little ones.” The full advertisement for The Rag Fair, however, does more than simply advertise–it praises her poetic prowess.
The Rag Fair is a poetic rumination on death and the redemptive power of Christ. Each page is illustrated by Louise herself, like most of her poetic publications. Below is an example page from the collection:
Her poetry for children has a very different style from her poetry for adults. Some poems in her children’s verse collections take on an infantilized voice, imitating a sort of children’s dialect. For instance, her poem “Just Born,” from Little Stay-at-Home and her Friends is written from the perspective of a freshly hatched chick,
Not had nuffin’
Since I’s born!
–Wonder if zat sing
Might be torn.‘Fraid it’s most too
Big for me;
Fink my mamma
Might tum see.”
The childlike voice is an…interesting choice. It appears in many poems across all her works for children, though some “normally” voiced poems also populate these collections.
Her children’s poetry focuses on magical portrayals of natural beauty–flower fairies, personifications of flowers or other natural items like seashells, and poems about and “by” animals, like the aforementioned baby chick, sometimes with religious themes.
Louise Clarkson Whitelock is an interesting Club member because of her diversity of publications for readers of all ages, and her prowess as an illustrator for both her own and others’ works. It is also notable that she chose to publish under the name ‘L. Clarkson,’ which would not betray her womanhood, even when writing books of verse for small children. There seem to be no known photographs of her, but photos of her rich illustrations are available.