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To Alexander Macmillan
45 Westbourne Terrace
July 12th [1864]

MS British Library Add MSS 54920: 30-31

Dear Mr Macmillan
Many thanks for your note, and its enclosure.

A French translation of Karamsin1 would suit me quite as well as an English one. I could make out a German one, but I am a poor German scholar, and take much longer to work at anything in that tongue. However if French cannot be had, I should of course be much obliged for a German version.

Thanks also about Lotty’s adventure. I am nearly sure it was in a September or October number of the Times, I did cut it out at the time, and gave it to a friend, who has since died. I hope to return home on the 12th, and after that I can soon let you have the few more ancient history deeds, so as to be able to begin printing.

We go on Thursday to the Revd Mr Argles
Barnack
Stamford

and on the 21st to the Honble Mrs Harcourt
Newsells Park
Royston

On August 1st to H.H. Gibbs’s Esq
St Dunstan’s
Regents Park

and whilst I am there I shall hope to make another descent upon you, and resume my MS, and have a talk.

I hope little Maurice is quite brightened up by his day’s rest. Pray remember me to the ladies at Streatham, and tell them how much I enjoyed my pleasant evening and all their kindness.2

Yours very truly
C. M. Yonge

Another story I wish I could recover was in a book on the South Sea islands, where two missionary’ wives prevented a cannibal feast.3 If I could see a list of books on Polynesian travels, I might recognise the name.

1Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766-1826). The work referred to is probably his History of the Russian Empire, which existed in both French and German translations. CMY possibly needed it for background to 'The Petitioners for Pardon' in A Book of Golden Deeds, the story of a young girl, Prascovia, who faced many dangers as she travelled from Siberia to St Petersburg to beg for a pardon for her father.
2The ladies at Streatham were Macmillan's wife and his sister-in-law, mother of his nephew Maurice.
3The women were Mary (Fowler) Calvert (1814-1882), wife of the Methodist missionary James Calvert (1813-1892) and the wife of the medical missionary Richard Burdsall Lyth (1810-1887); the incident is described in James Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians (London : Alexander Heylin, 1858, rpt. Suva: Fiji Museum 2003) Chapter 8, 290-1.
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/1964/to-alexander-macmillan-33

One Comment
  1. Ellen Jordan says:
    November 1, 2011 at 11:24 pm

    “[[person:]wife] ” needs cleaning up.
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