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 Cole I well remember the day you spent here five years ago, and all I have heard of you from the Colborne family.
I am afraid though that it is not of much use for your friend to send me a fairy tale of any length, as I have rather an overflow on my hands of the lighter department and I cannot put in anything of that sort of many pages or of long ... continue reading
My dear Miss Smith,
You must have begun to wonder if the Indian £10 was coming I am sure I did, but here it is at last, in good time I hope. It seems that Mrs Elphinstone has been very ill, and that has prevented her from sending it sooner. I will write to her to acknowledge it as soon as I have heard from you. I am glad to see your three Ks in the ... continue reading
My dear Alice, I was thinking of sending ‘The Mice at Play’ to Maggie, but somehow I felt that the note must be to one who could remember the old days, when the three bright faces it brings to mind were with us. If you had been people who shrank from such recollections instead of cherishing them, I would of course never have disinterred this old affair, but I know you will like the recurrence to ... continue reading