Ellery H. (Ellery Harding) Clark

Born in West Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1874, Ellery Harding Clark was an American writer, lawyer, and athlete. He is best remembered in sports history for winning the high jump and long jump at the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896, while also building a professional life far beyond the track.

Clark wrote widely across genres. His published work included athletic memoir and instruction, fiction, and other nonfiction, and records of his work show a long writing career that stretched well into the early twentieth century. That mix of practical experience and literary ambition gives his books an unusual character: they often feel shaped by someone who had lived several distinct lives.

He died in 1949. Today, he stands out as one of those early twentieth-century figures who are hard to place in a single category—part sports pioneer, part man of letters, and plainly a writer with broad interests.