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 Mrs. Romanes- I have been reading the book before thanking you for it, and telling you how grateful I am for being allowed to see something of so beautiful a character. Especially I had never understood that religious principles and aspirations had been a thing of early days, so that it was truly ‘our Childhood's Star again arising’ after an eclipse which had not been of the spirit and love of right and ... continue reading
My dear Mary Thank you so much for your long letter and history of all your doings. I am sure if usefulness makes a happy life this ought to be one, and you must have much of kindness and of the sense of a living Church round you to fill you with energy. I do not know whether you have ever felt a sort of sense of the absence of the whole salt of life in ... continue reading
My dear Miss Smith
Thank you, I like the beginning very much, and I think it much to the purpose, as you always are. I hope it is not to turn out very melancholy, though I have my fears. The Church going is very pretty and calm. But I cannot help thinking that though the favoured inmates of the pew do feel the shelter, and the associations, the poor had much less chance ... continue reading
Dear Mr Macmillan
I am not certain whether it was mentioned that sheets of the Trial were to be sent to Messrs Williams and Norgate to be forwarded to M. Tauchnitz. He has just written to me to ask for them which makes me mention it.
I send the chapters of The Trial, all but the three last, which shall follow in a week or fortnight.
Yours faithfully C. M. Yonge
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