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 Madam I return the Stories on the Calendar, which you so bravely speak of rewriting. After all, I feel myself that that is a much more comfortable plan than patching, one spoils the new to make it suit the old, and then the old looks ill by the side of the new. Thank you for so kindly receiving my criticisms, and I hope you will not hurry yourself, as one chapter on the first of ... continue reading
Dear Mr Macmillan, I suppose the Prince and the Page will be out next week, so I enclose a list of the presentation copies. I hope I sent back the last proof, but it was only of the index, so it matters not at all, unless it has caused a delay. It has been a confused week, for the little girl, after some days of hopeful improvement suddenly lost ground and died early on Thursday morning. ... continue reading
My dear Mrs Joyce,
I am sorry to say I must ask you to put off your kind visit till next week.
My sister in law’s brother, Charles Walter, has been killed in Alderney by a fall from his dog cart. He is to be buried on Tuesday, beside his father at Winchester, and the relations will be in and out here to see the poor invalid sister so that I cannot venture to have anyone ... continue reading