Charlotte Yonge is one of the most influential and important of Victorian women writers; but study of her work has been handicapped by a tendency to patronise both her and her writing, by the vast number of her publications and by a shortage of information about her professional career. Scholars have had to depend mainly on the work of her first biographer, a loyal disciple, a situation which has long been felt to be unsatisfactory. We hope that this edition of her correspondence will provide for the first time a substantial foundation of facts for the study of her fiction, her historical and educational writing and her journalism, and help to illuminate her biography and also her significance in the cultural and religious history of the Victorian age.


Featured Letters...

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
[28 January 1870]

My dear Miss Sewell, Here is a demand from the London library for you. I hope you have done with the book.

The weather shews that you were wise. I hope to see you as soon as it looks more mild

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

... continue reading
Otterbourn
Jany 16th [1854]

Dear Miss Roberts, I hope your correspondence with Mr Neale has been satisfactory, and also with Mr Mozley. If you have not heard from him yet, I should think you had better write again and ask his decision. Certainly I think it would not do to dwell on the other name of the Arbor Vitae, the Legend of the Blessed Thistle I do not know. I had not heard that the Wren was our Lady’s bird, ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
March 12 [1881]

My dear Miss Smith

It is very pleasant to hear from you again. I think I shall read your paper to our mothers next Friday as part of it. We only began last winter- our clergyman’s wife to do the executive and I to read to them Alas! this spring we have had the terrible and unexpected loss of our good Vicar. He was only 42, and in full work, when struck ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
July 9th 1874
Dear Madam, No one can fail to thank you for your kindness, but I am afraid the work is impossible All the vocabulary &c are in the most inchoate state; besides that they are only in MS, and in Norfolk island  nor are they more than guides to those who learn the language by intercourse with the natives.  I should think there was not even part of a Bible or Prayer book here unless in the hands ... continue reading