Mary Victoria Cowden Clarke (née Novello; pen names, M. H. and Harry Wandsworth Shortfellow; 22 June 1809 – 12 January 1898) was an English author, and compiler of a concordance to Shakespeare. Early life and education Mary Victoria Novello was born at 240 Oxford Street, London, 22 June 1809. She was the eldest daughter of eleven children of Vincent Novello, and his wife, Mary Sabilla Hehl. She was called Victoria after her father's friend the Rev. Victor Fryer. During her early years she made at her father's house the acquaintance of many men distinguished in art and letters. John Varley, Copley Fielding, Havell, and Joshua Cristall among artists, and Charles and Mary Lamb, Leigh Hunt, and John Keats among writers, were included in the circle of her father's most intimate friends, and she acquired much of her taste for literature from Mary Lamb, who gave her lessons in Latin and poetical reading. She is mentioned as "Victoria" in several of Lamb's letters to Vincent Novello; and Leigh Hunt and the Lambs maintained throughout their lives affectionate relations with Cowden-Clarke and her husband. Her education was entrusted to the care of a M. Bonnefoy, who kept a school at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Career On her return to England she acted for a short time as governess in a family named Purcell residing at Cranford, London, but she was compelled to abandon this employment owing to ill-health. She published "My Arm Chair", under the initials "M. H.", in William Hone's Table Book in 1827. This contribution was followed by others of a similar nature and a paper on "The Assignats in currency at the time of the French Republic of 1792". On 1 November 1826 she was engaged to Charles Cowden Clarke, her brother Alfred's business partner, and who had been for many years a close friend of the Novellos. On 5 July 1828, the couple married, spending their honeymoon at the 'Greyhound' at Enfield. The marriage was celebrated by Lamb in a playful Serenata, for two Voices, which he sent to Vincent Novello in a letter dated 6 Nov. 1828. Charles and Mary Cowden-Clarke continued to live with the Novello family. In the year after her marriage, Cowden Clarke began her valuable Shakespeare concordance. The compilation occupied twelve years, a further four years being devoted to seeing it through the press. It was eventually issued in eighteen monthly parts (1844–1845), and in