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...
My dear Mary I came home from Salisbury yesterday afternoon, and tried to answer your note, but could not finish. I will keep your card and see if I can give the case a vote.
I am going to stay with Frances next week from Monday to Saturday
Your affectionate C M Yonge
... continue readingDear Madam
I am very sorry not to have answered your letter sooner, I put it aside to enquire about Mrs White, and in the hurry of Christmas preparations it was forgotten. She is not strictly an inhabitant of this parish, but of Compton- where I believe her husband is man to Mr Baldwin the maltster. I had heard that she took in washing, and I believe that she is respectable but I know ... continue reading
. . . But I must tell you of something that has given me the greatest pleasure. About two years ago a lady belonging to the Mission at Calcutta wrote to me that a Hindu student had been so much impressed with the Pillars of the House as to accept Christianity, and that he was going to be baptized. So I sent out one of those illuminated cards that are given at baptisms (Henry Bowles ... continue reading
It was a great delight to me to receive a letter from Mr. Keble, by the February mail from England. How kind of him to write to me; and his words are such a help and encouragement.
I dare say I shall see Merivale’s Lectures soon. Nothing can well be so wonderful, as a proof of God’s hand controlling and arranging all the course of history to those who need it, as a subject for adoration ... continue reading