author
Grace Clarke Newton
A Gilded Age poet and society figure, her work captures the polished world of early 20th-century leisure with a light, playful touch. She is remembered for verse books including Poems in Passing and The A B C of Drag Hunting.
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About the author
Born in 1875, Grace Clarke Newton was an American poet and socialite associated with New York’s Gilded Age world. Sources about her life describe her as the daughter of the prominent collector Thomas B. Clarke, and LibriVox lists her lifespan as October 19, 1875 to October 15, 1915.
Her published work includes Poems in Passing and The A B C of Drag Hunting, a witty alphabet book centered on the sporting culture of her day. Although her life was short, these books have kept her name alive for readers interested in light verse, equestrian life, and the manners of an earlier American elite.
What makes her interesting now is the mix of elegance and specificity in her writing: her poems and sporting verses offer a small window into a very particular social world, while still feeling lively and readable more than a century later.