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To Laura Valentine
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
May 19th [1871]

MS Princeton University, Parrish Collection C0171: Box 29

My dear Mrs Valentine,
I think this is a very good time to bring forward the Story of the Crawl and your pretty ballad shall come in July.1 I am sorry it is too late for June.

I am glad you are going to have another annual but I am afraid I am so busy that I have not a scrap available. But I do wish very much that you could persuade Mr Warne to take those stories of Madame Guizot de Witt’s.2 They have never been published in France and have been most carefully translated. He refused them rather peremptorily last year (not having seen them) from my description but I know I came too late for the Christmas season, and you were away

There are four – on Simon de Montfort, on the childhood of Jaqueline Pascal – on Madame de Sevigné and another on La Vendée, the translation of which is not quite finished. They would make a charming volume.

I am coming to London on Monday and will send the three from the parcels delivery to you – I am really anxious about them, for the sake of sending something to the family – and the tales seem to me excellent

I shall be at H H Gibbs’s, Esq, St Dunstan’s Regents Park, N W3 until Saturday, so please send me a note there. I have a little niece to shew all the wonders of London to, and I cannot much depend upon my self – but if I can I will try to call on you

Yours sincerely
C M Yonge

1'The Crawl: A Legend of Tichborne', a ballad, was published in MP ns 12 (July 1871). The subject was topical because the trial of the Tichborne claimant was in progress (10 May 1871-6 March 1872).
2Dames of High Estate (London: Warne 1871). Valentine worked for Warne as a children's books editor. CMY wanted to send money to Henriette de Witt who was doing charity work in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war.
4St Dunstan's was a grand house in Regent's Park where CMY's cousin Henry Hucks Gibbs (1819-1901), later (1896) 1st Lord Aldenham, lived.

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/2409/to-laura-valentine-3

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