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To Ellen Rayne Garnett
Otterbourne, Winchester.
Feb 6th 1861

MS Bodleian Library, Eng. lett. e.30 ff137-9 1

Madam2,
I have looked at and considered your version of the first Book of the Iliad, and it seems to me very prettily done, but I am afraid that in the present state of criticism especially through Mr Gladstone’s book, even Homer for children would require something more and deeper some separation of the Greek and Roman names of the deities, and view either mythical or historical, making it more of a study and not taking only the surface narrative interest. At least, I am afraid that the readers of the Monthly Packet would require something of this kind, and I therefore think it better to decline your MS though very well executed as far as it goes

With thanks
Yours faithfully
C.M. Yonge

1Envelope addressed to 'Miss Garnett/ St John’s College/ Oxford' Postmark indecipherable. “Yonge 25/-” written in pencil in bottom left-hand corner.
2The letter is listed as ‘Garrett’ in the Bodleian catalogue, but Ellen R. Garnett (b. 1839/40) appears in the 1861 census as governess to the children of Philip Wynter, president of St. John’s College, Oxford. She was probably the daughter of the Rev. Richard Garnett and the sister of Richard Garnett (1835-1906), keeper of printed books at the British Museum.
Cite this letter


The Letters of Charlotte Mary Yonge(1823-1901) edited by Charlotte Mitchell, Ellen Jordan and Helen Schinske.

URL to this Letter is: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/yonge/1813/to-ellen-r-garnettfootnote1

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