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...
Dear Sir I am much obliged for your letter, with the curious particulars about the Bartons. The cow is delightful!
But Manydown is not a mistake, it is near Basingstoke, and (I believe) held on the tenure of receiving the Winchester scholars if the plague was in the city. I have known many of the family of Bigg, who two generations ago, took the surname of Wither, on inheriting Tangier Park from the ... continue reading
My dear Anne Mamma is writing to Uncle James so I think Puslinch must hear at the same time otherwise I should like to save Uncle Yonge the anxiety.
Papa has been over working himself with spending whole long days without dinner upon Julian’s preparations, and yesterday after going to Portsmouth to take leave of him, and coming home very late, a sort of seizure came on like an exaggerated headache. We sent for Mr Lyford ... continue reading
Anne and I were pleased to have a sight of Emily; there is more change in the latter than in the former in the fourteen years since they met. I hope you will not have to part with the Chester division of the family much before Christmas. Perhaps if you do not join them there very soon after they go, you would let me come to you for a little while. . . I ... continue reading
My dear Miss Butler Many thanks for the chapter of Likes and Dislikes, which brings out Emilys moral very satisfactorily. I should not like it to be the absolute last, and should quite wish to continue her history after an interval. How would it be - if we were to continue the story next July year - if we may venture to look so far forward, and if it do not suit you better ... continue reading