Charlotte Yonge is one of the most influential and important of Victorian women writers; but study of her work has been handicapped by a tendency to patronise both her and her writing, by the vast number of her publications and by a shortage of information about her professional career. Scholars have had to depend mainly on the work of her first biographer, a loyal disciple, a situation which has long been felt to be unsatisfactory. We hope that this edition of her correspondence will provide for the first time a substantial foundation of facts for the study of her fiction, her historical and educational writing and her journalism, and help to illuminate her biography and also her significance in the cultural and religious history of the Victorian age.


Featured Letters...

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester
September 20, 1869.

My dear Florence Thank you for your kind note; I am glad you are at St. Cross again. I will try to come and see you as soon as I can. My dear cousin Anne had not been strong for many years, but was quite in her usual health till forty-eight hours before the end. Then as she was going upstairs at night a dreadful attack in the head came on, just what several of the ... continue reading

Otterbourn
Novr 21st [1860?]
Sir I have carefully read the MSS with which you have favored me. I have sent the very amusing school story to be inspected for the Magazine for the Young, and will let you know the answer as soon as I receive it. The Idle Word and We Must Submit I should be glad to retain for the Monthly Packet. ‘Is it False’ I think I had better return at once, as though a very good ... continue reading
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
March 21st [1867]

My dear Miss Jacob, I think the dream exceedingly beautiful, it went quite to my heart, and the vision of the mother saving the children was the pleasanter to meet with because I remember once talking it over with the dear Warden Barter, though whether I first heard it from him I cannot remember, at any rate it brought me his face and voice.

The only thing that I should have a shadow of doubt about is ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
May 18th 1874

My dear Sir Edward

I forgot about Lady Beatrix Graham to which I certainly contributed nothing but the preface. I did not even profess to edit it so it was quite gratuitously attributed to me. I ought to have remembered that is had been so.

I am not quite sure where your knowledge of the ornaments of the County hall stopped short. I went over it about Christmas and thought the effect most beautiful

There is a collection ... continue reading