James Stanier Clarke

Early life The eldest son of Edward Clarke and Anne Grenfield, and brother of Edward Daniel Clarke, he was born on 17 December 1766 at Mahon, Minorca where his father was at the time chaplain to the governor. and then at Tonbridge School under Vicesimus Knox. Matriculating at St John's College, Cambridge in 1784, he did not complete a first degree.

Having taken holy orders, Clarke was in 1790 appointed to the rectory of Preston, Sussex. In 1792 he was living at Eartham with William Hayley; Thomas Alphonso Hayley made a bust of him.

Courtier Clarke in February 1795 entered the Royal Navy as a chaplain; and served, 1796–99, on board HMS Impetueux in the Channel fleet, under the command of captain John Willett Payne, by whom he was introduced to George, Prince of Wales. It was the end of his service afloat, after George appointed him his domestic chaplain and librarian.

From 1815 for a short period Clarke was in contact with Jane Austen about her novel-writing: they were introduced by Austen's friend the surgeon Charles Thomas Haden. Having shown Austen round the library at Carlton House in November, and arranged that George should have Emma dedicated to him, Clarke also made suggestions in correspondence for Austen's future writing. These she mocked in the satirical manuscript Plan of a Novel, According to Hints from Various Quarters, not published in her lifetime.

Clarke was installed canon of Windsor, 19 May 1821; and was Deputy Clerk of the Closet to the king.

Clarke died on 4 October 1834.

In 1809, with McArthur, Clarke published his major work, The Life of Lord Nelson (2 vols.; 2nd edit. 1840). It mixed official and private letters, and made questionable use of its sources.

In 1816, Clarke published a Life of King James II, from the Stuart MSS. in Carlton House (2 vols.). The work contains portions of the king's autobiography, the original of which is now lost; A modern scholarly view is that the work was written in two parts by different Jacobite courtiers, the first part (to 1677) being by John Caryll, the second by William Dicconson. David Nairne assisted Caryll.

Clarke also edited William Falconer's The Shipwreck, with life of the author and notes (1804), which ran to several editions, and Lord Clarendon's Essays (1815, 2 vols.).