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...

Otterbourn
Oct 21st 1844

My dear Anne

Thanks for your letter, and Mamma’s thanks for Mary’s. I am very glad indeed that you like Amy Herbert though I was sure you would enjoy it, her brother comes here today and I am sure he will be glad to hear of its being such an amusement to aunt Yonge. I am curious to know what you say about certain things I have heard objected to Some people especially ... continue reading

My dear Marianne- The day went in this way yesterday---towards eleven o’clock there was a bell, and we all went down and wandered in the garden till everybody was assembled, then we went to M. Guizot’s study and had prayers, he reading a chapter of St. Matthew, and Mme. de Witt making a short prayer of it, ending with the Lord’s Prayer. Then came the post and breakfast, upon rissoles, fried potatoes, fruit and vin ordinaire, ... continue reading

My dear Maggie I wish you many happy returns of the day, and I wish I was sending you a Daisy Chain with it, but I did not write a letter in time to get it from London, so I am afraid you must wait for it till the next day, but it will be something to look forward to then, and I will write your name in it, if you like on Friday evening

your affectionate ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
June 17th [1869?]

Dear Miss Ingelow I enclose a note from a friend of mine, a young clergyman’s wife, who is as you see trying to raise the money for an Organ for her husband’s Church in the close neighbourhood of the White Horse of Berkshire

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

... continue reading