THE SALAMANCA CORPUS:

DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF ENGLISH DIALECT TEXTS

ESSEX

DING 2014: “Born in Heybridge, Ess., and educated at Witham, he is known as the Bard of Totham. He was an antiquarian, printer and avid book collector, as well as a farmer. He wrote many ballads about his native countryside, some of them in or including Essex dialect. His extensive correspondence with John Russell Smith is kept at the Essex Record Office. He also used the pseudonyms Doggrel Drydog and Malthus Merryfellow. Only one of his works was a source for EDD.”

WORKS

1839. The Heiress-Entrapping Doctor’s Soliloquy. ‘All in My Puss.’ An Imitation of “All Round my Hat.” Great Totham: Printed at Charles Clark’s Private Press. SC.

1839. John Noakes and Mary Styles or “an Essex Calf’s” Visit of Tiptree Races, a Poem Exhibiting some of the Most Striking Lingual Localisms Peculiar to Essex, with a Glossary. London: John Russell Smith. SC. EDD.

1842. The Trip to Tiptree; Or, A Lover’s Triumph. Humbly presented to the Philologist, as a specimen of the dialect of the peasantry of Essex. Great Totham: Printed at Charles Clark’s Private Press. SC.

1842. Tiptree Races. All on the Heath. Great Totham: Printed at Charles Clark’s Private Press. SC.

1844. Chelmsford. The Righteous and the Racegoers. If There are Some Asses Wot will Not Go! A Parody. Tiptree Heath. Printed at Charles Clark’s Private Press. SC.

NOT IN KINGKONG PROJECT

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT HIS LIFE AND WORKS SEE

Bettley, James. 2004. "Clark, Charles (1806-1880)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford:University Press. [Accessed 5 July 2022]

Brignull, A. 1990. Charles Clark: the Bard of Totham. Loughborough: Hedgehog Press.

Finding Charles Clark

Griffin, Carrie and Mary O'Connell. 2016. "The Dynamics of Collecting: The Literary Relationship of Charles Clark and John Russell Smith." The Essex Journal Spring: 27-36.