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 Miss Yonge, It is most kind of you to take my crude criticism in so good part. I did think of the parts, and your possible motive in dwelling on the opening chapter in the slight way you have done. Still with an eye to what is coming I cannot but think that the opening should be fuller, more sonorous and in a higher key. But I have asked Mr Clay to let ... continue reading
My dear C C We cannot find your porcupine, I think he must be shut up in a MS. Susan, the cook informed me yesterday that she is going to marry in July, rather frantic for she can only get through easy work here with Bessie’s help however I am glad to be spared the break down that there will be- and Bessie has a sister who will probably come so all will most ... continue reading
My dear Christabel Some of the answers are at home, and some have followed me about and I must wait to act Mother Goose till I have got them all together as I hope to do when I get to Tyntesfield the end of next week. I have made acquaintance with Gridiron, whom I found staying at Wantage. She is not so lame as Gertrude but I should think in a far more precarious ... continue reading