Mary Bayard Devereux Clarke

Mary Bayard Devereux Clarke ( Devereux; May 13, 1827 – March 30, 1886) was a writer, poet, and editor who resided in North Carolina. Described posthumously by the Raleigh News and Observer as "one of its most gifted daughters", Clarke came from a prominent, wealthy family. Her third great-grandfather, Thomas Pollock served as governor and acquired large sums of land spanning the entire eastern portion of the state, on which he and his sons built many plantations. Her family's wealth was inherited by her grandmother Frances Pollock, the last remaining kin to Thomas Pollock. Frances married John Devereux in New Bern before moving to Raleigh. Her paternal great-grandfather was Jonathon Edwards, theologian and president of Princeton University. On her mother's side, she was descended from Samuel Johnson, another early American clergyman and educator who was the first president of King's College (today Columbia University). She was particularly interested in learning other languages, notably German, French, Spanish, and Italian, and practiced translating their literature into English. Her family valued her education and encouraged her to continue writing as she grew up. Clarke first gained prominence for her work as an editor. She wrote book reviews for publishers and compiled tomes of other writers' poetry. Clarke's career was varied, as she contributed to a number of magazines, books, collections of poetry, and other pieces of literature. She was an editor of Southern Field and Fireside in 1865, a writer for Peterson's Magazine,

Using pseudonyms, Clarke began her own career as a poet. One of her first works Woods-Note, also known as Carolina Carols: A Collection of North Carolina Poetry, was published in 1854 and gained significant recognition. Furthermore, she gained recognition for her satirical political stories during the time of radical reconstruction.