MS British Library Add MSS 54921: 157-8

Dear Mr Craik

I must go on with the Queen’s life now, for there is a letter from Sir Henry Ponsonby this morning, recommending me to dedicate it to the Queen’s daughters, which is a sort of acceptance. So I will gladly accept your kind offer of taking it and giving me half profits.

I never had much hope of the work and only was driven into it. I finished it yesterday, and send it off today to you. And now for the title. I suppose Jubilee book is absorbed. Something distinctive we must have. What do you think of ‘The Victorian Half Century’ or is that taken up?

I am afraid (though I don’t like it) that to call it Charlotte M Yonge’s Victorian Half Century .[sic] would give it the best chance of people’s knowing what they were asking for – and as a second title The life and/of Queen Victoria and chief events of her reign for Young People.

I think that is necessary to shew that it is not a real political history.

I am sorry there is all this inconvenience about the Quest of Ulysses. A Modern Telemachus is really better¹

Yours truly
C M Yonge

I go to Torquay in ten days time but shall be ready for proofs there

‘The Jubilee Book’ is the best title but I suppose it is already absorbed.