Mary Victoria Cowden Clarke (née Novello; pen names, M. H. and Harry Wandsworth Shortfellow; 22 June 1809 – 12 January 1898) was an English author, and compiler of a concordance to Shakespeare.

[1] On her return to England she acted for a short time as governess in a family named Purcell residing at Cranford, London, but she was compelled to abandon this employment owing to ill-health.

[1] On 1 November 1826 she was engaged to Charles Cowden Clarke, her brother Alfred's business partner, and who had been for many years a close friend of the Novellos.

[1] It was eventually issued in eighteen monthly parts (1844–1845), and in volume form in 1845 as The Complete Concordance to Shakespeare, being a Verbal Index to all the Passages in the Dramatic Works of the Poet.

These private theatricals led to an introduction through Leigh Hunt to Charles Dickens, who persuaded her to perform in the amateur company which, under his direction, gave representations in London and several provincial towns in aid of the establishment of a perpetual curatorship of Shakespeare's birthplace at Stratford-on-Avon.

Cowden-Clarke's roles included Dame Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Haymarket, on 15 May 1848, Tib in Every Man in his Humour, and Mrs. Hillary in Kenney's Love, Law, and Physic on 17 May.

The repertoire also contained Animal Magnetism, Two o'clock in the Morning, and Used Up; and performances were given during June and July at Liverpool, Birmingham, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

In 1860, she issued Shakespeare's Works, edited with a scrupulous revision of the text (New York and London), and in 1864, The Life and Labours of Vincent Novello.

In 1887, she commemorated the hundredth anniversary of her husband's birth with a Centennial Biographic Sketch of Charles Cowden-Clarke, which was printed privately, and in 1896, she published an autobiography entitled My Long Life.