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To George Lillie Craik
Elderfield
July 24th [1886]

MS British Library Add MSS 54921:155-6

Dear Mr Craik

I have just heard to my consternation that there is a book called A Quest of Ulysses, a novel published a year or two ago. 1

Is it too late to change the name to A Modern Telemachus?

I have I hope got upon the scent of the original French narrative, so I must keep the preface waiting till I find whether I can get it.2

The National Society think the book about the Queen not in their line!

Since Mr Comyns Carr’s application Sir Henry Ponsonby wrote to me hoping I would not put in the current legends of the Queen’s early history.3 I replied by explaining the state of things and saying I wished anyone could be authorised to look at the proofs, and say which is true, also asking leave to dedicate it to the Queen. This was a fortnight ago, but I have had no answer and I suppose this is a bad time for expecting one. A days work more will finish the thing. Will you still take it, and make it as cheap as you conveniently can.

Yours truly
C M Yonge

1Joseph Hatton, A Modern Ulysses: Being the life, loves, adventures, and strange experiences of Horace Durand 3 vols (London: Chapman & Hall 1883).
2As is explained in the preface to A Modern Telemachus, CMY had based her story on one in Archibald Duncan's compilation of shipwreck tales, The Mariner's Chronicle (1804). She had subsequently located a copy of his authority, Jean Baptiste de La Faye Voyage pour la redemption des captifs aux royaumes d'Alger et de Tunis, fait en 1720 (1721).
3Sir Henry Ponsonby (1825-1895) was private secretary to Queen Victoria 1870-95. Joseph Comyns Carr was editor of the English Illustrated Magazine in which it had been proposed to publish Victorian Half-Century.

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/2838/to-george-lillie-craik-71

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