Rebecca Sophia Clarke, an American children's author of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote forty-five books under the pseudonym Sophie May. Chief among them were her immensely popular Little Prudy and Dotty Dimple series. Clarke lived most of her life in her hometown of Norridgewock, Maine, save for ten years spent as a teacher in Evansville, Indiana. After suffering a severe hearing loss in 1861, she went to live with her sister, Sarah Jones Clarke, another children's author, who published under the name Penn Shirley
