Clare Benedict (1870–1961) was an American writer and patron.

Biography

Clare Benedict was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, in 1870. She was a distant relative of

James Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought h ...

(her great-grandmother was his sister). She was wealthy and never needed to work for money; her families wealth was based on steel and oranges. She spent much of her life in Europe, travelling with her aunt, the writer Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894), later with her mother Clara (1844–1923), visiting places, attending festivals, concerts and theatrical performances. She died in 1961 in Lucerne, Switzerland, where she had lived since 1941, and is buried, like her aunt and her mother, at the Cimitero Acattolico in Rome.

Writer

Clare Benedict was a gifted writer, who published collections of tales, ''A Resemblance: And Other Stories'' (1909), ''XII'' (1921), and other books like ''European Backgrounds'' (1912), ''The little lost Prince'' (1912), ''The Divine Spark'' (1913) on Wagner, ''Six Months, March to August, 1914'' (1914), a personal account of the months leading up to the war, and, ''Five Generations: 1785–1923'' (1930), consisting of the three volumes ''Voices Out of the Past'', ''Constance Fenimore Woolson'', and ''The Benedicts Abroad''.

Donations

Clare Benedict is thought to be best remembered as a patron, with donations in various areas. After World War I, she started to support the '' Schillerstiftung'' in Weimar with generous gifts of food for needy writers (and was made an honorary member in 1923). She did the same again after World War II, and in 1950 helped, with a generous donation, to put the ''Schillerstiftung'' on its feet again. The ''Stiftung'' had apparently become some kind of surrogate family to her. In 1923, when her mother died, she gave funds to the

Cimitero Acattolico The Non-Catholic Cemetery (), also referred to as the Protestant Cemetery () or the English Cemetery (), is a private cemetery in the rione of Testaccio in Rome. It is near Porta San Paolo and adjacent to the Pyramid of Cestius, a small-scale ...

in Rome to raise the wall around it and for other gardening work. In 1938,

Rollins College Rollins College is a Liberal arts college, private liberal arts college in Winter Park, Florida. It was founded in November 1885 and has about 30 undergraduate majors and several master's programs. Florida's fourth oldest post-secondary institut ...

in Winter Park, Florida, with her help could open Woolson House and install 'The Clare Benedict Collection' of Constance Fenimore Woolson (American author (1840 – 1894)), which also contains documents relating to Clare Benedict's life. She helped set up the

Clare Benedict Cup The Clare Benedict Cup was a chess tournament for national teams from Western and Northern Europe, which took place 23 times from 1953 to 1979. Overview and History Foundation Clare Benedict (1871–1961), author and patron, was originally fr ...

with Alois Nagler (a Swiss chess player) and the Chess Society of Zurich, as an annual international team

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

tournament for national teams from Western and Northern Europe, which was held from 1953 to 1979, until the funds ran out. There is also a tulip that carries her name: Tulipa eichleri 'Clare Benedict'.

The Cooper Library

The English Department of Basel University profited from her generosity in two ways: When she lived in Basel from 1939 to 1941 she became interested in the work done in the department, conducted by her countryman Henry Lüdeke. She helped to create the "James Fenimore Cooper Stipendien-Fonds" in 1952, to support the study of Anglo-Saxon language, literature and culture, by giving the sum of US$20'000, equivalent to about US$164'000 in 2010; and on her death in 1961 she bequeathed part of her library to the department. The library at Basel does not represent the full range of Clare Benedict's books. She obviously felt, late in her life, that the books associated with people buried at the Cimitero Acattolico in Rome should also be represented there. In 1960, shortly before her death, she put together a catalogue of the books she gave to that cemetery. As was the case with

, the gift to the English Department did not only consist of books. In a move that may tell us something about her attitude to the practice of literature, Clare Benedict also gave along the shelves, a comfortable reading chair, a kidney-shaped table, an oriental rug, even a card table (including playing cards), the bronze statue of a dog, some cutlery, a cased drinking-glass given to her as a child by

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

, and ribbons from the funeral of

Henry Irving Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility ( ...

. The collection also includes photographs and autographs: an envelope addressed by Queen Victoria to the Queen of Belgium, letters by

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

, and

. Among the 1154 items, which cover a wide range of topics, there are first editions of works by Fenimore Cooper and Henry James, collections of newspaper clippings on Henry Irving and

George Meredith George Meredith (12 February 1828 – 18 May 1909) was an English novelist and poet of the Victorian era. At first, his focus was poetry, influenced by John Keats among others, but Meredith gradually established a reputation as a novelist. '' ...

, playbills of the performances Clare Benedict had seen all over Europe, musical scores, editions of Anglophone classics, guides to (mainly) Italian towns and churches, biographies, and publications that had been given to Clare Benedict. In its variety the library represents the interests of an educated American expatriate lady with a voracious interest in European culture.

Works

*''A Resemblance: And Other Stories''. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1909. * ''XII''. Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1921. * ''European Backgrounds''. Edinburgh: Andrew Eliot, 1912. * ''The little lost Prince''. Edinburgh: Andrew Eliot, 1912. * ''The Divine Spark''. Privately printed, 1913. * ''Six Months, March to August, 1914''. Cooperstown NY: Arthur H. Crist Co. 1914. * ''Five Generations: 1785–1923'' (1930), vol. 1–3. ''Voices Out of the Past'', ''Constance Fenimore Woolson'', ''The Benedicts Abroad''. London: Ellis, 1930. * Benedict, Clare, ed. ''The In Memoriam Library''. Selected and Edited by Clare Benedict. Lucerne 1960.

References

Other sources

*Cimitero acattolico, Rome: http://www.protestantcemetery.it/ *Hasler, Jörg. ''Switzerland in the Life and Works of Henry James''. Cooper Monographs, 10. Berne: Francke, 1966. *Olimpbase: http://www.olimpbase.org/index.html?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olimpbase.org%2Fcbc%2Fabout.html (1-2-2011) *Rollins College: https://web.archive.org/web/20110720035904/http://asp3.rollins.edu/olin/oldsite/archives/benedict.htm (1-2-2011) *Schwabach-Albrecht, Susanne. "Clare Benedict (1870–1961): Schriftstellerin und Stifterin: ein Porträt" In: ''Deutsche Schillerstiftung von 1859:Ehrungen, Berichte, Dokumentationen 1997''. Ed. Michael Krejci. Fürstenfeldbruck:. Kester-Häusler-Stiftung, 1997. 60–86. *Schwabach-Albrecht, Susanne, "Die Deutsche Schillerstiftung 1909–1945". ''Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens'' 55 (2001). 1–156.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Benedict, Clare 1870 births 1961 deaths Chess patrons Writers from Cleveland Burials in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome