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To an Unknown Woman
Tyntesfield1
Sept 3d [late 1850s?]2

MS Princeton University, Parrish Collection

My dear Madam,

I fear you must almost have despaired of receiving the renderings of the names, but we have been so constantly either seeing sights or travelling that this is the first time I have been able to set them down, and now I am afraid they will prove very disappointing, and not too susceptible of illumination – I am afraid names are too often mere adjectives to be very manageable for the purpose. I added the Stem as the only way in which many could be illuminated, unless figures of the Saints of each name were to be introduced2

Regretting the long delay
Yours faithfully
C M Yonge

1The home, near Bristol, of CMY’s friends William and Matilda Gibbs.
2The formal tone of this letter resembles CMY's correspondence with strangers in the 1850s, and it seems likely that it was written during the period 1852-1862 when she was publishing a series of articles on 'Name-fancying' in MP which were the germ of her History of Christian Names (1863).
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/3533/to-an-unknown-woman-47

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