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...

To an Unknown Woman
G F S Elderfield Otterbourne Winchester
Jan 10th [1880s?]

Dear Madam

I do not think your duties are very definite.

1st to induce a bookseller within easy reach of your Branch to keep a depôt of GFS literature

2d To manage the Book slate at festivals

3d to know the numbers of GFS magazines taken in the Branch

4th to know whether the girls have access to lending libraries and if books are borrowed from the Diocesan Library to manage the correspondence

5th To fill up the report ... continue reading

To John Henry Ingram
Elderfield
Novr 8th [1889]

Dear Mr Ingram

Thank you for your letter. I have put notes of quotation to Mme Bunsen’s phrase. It is always a difficulty to know whether to use them when tenses are changed, and only a word or two exactly quoted.

I think I could undertake Duchess Sarah, and I should be glad of the loan of your documents but I must not think about her till Prince Albert is off my hands, and I do not ... continue reading

To Mary Yonge
Elderfield
April 11 [1900]

My dear Mary I have just heard from Jane Moore. She is at Ramsgate, where her husband has been sent to get over an attack of bronchitis from 7 hours work at Aldershot! She and I have had a great blow in the sudden loss of Lady Susan Blunt. You know she was the General’s cousin, and the daughter of my mother’s old friend, Lady Nelson We always so enjoyed meeting ... continue reading

To Alexander Macmillan
45 Westbourne Terrace
July 12th [1864]

Dear Mr Macmillan Many thanks for your note, and its enclosure.

A French translation of Karamsin would suit me quite as well as an English one. I could make out a German one, but I am a poor German scholar, and take much longer to work at anything in that tongue. However if French cannot be had, I should of course be much obliged for a German version.

Thanks also about Lotty’s adventure. I am nearly sure ... continue reading