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 Sir Walter Besant
Elderfield Otterbourne Winchester
Feb 8th [1899?]

Sir, I am moved to say something from my own personal knowledge in defence of rustic reading

I do not care whether this is inserted as a letter, but I should like the substance to appear, as I know it to be fact, and I think it is true of many other Hampshire villages

Yours truly C M Yonge

... continue reading
To Caroline Elizabeth Cooke Trench
Otterbourne, Winchester
February 16, 1859

My dear Caroline I shall like very much to send a pound towards your window; shall I send it to you at once by a post-office order? I hope your diaper will be as beautiful as some of those patterns of the Cologne windows of which we used to have a great sheet, and I always longed to see in glass, thinking that they would be better than bad figures.

Miss Keble's illness was a very bad ... continue reading

To an Unknown Woman
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
March 1st 1880

My dear Madam

I am very sorry that Mr Macmillan was so disappointing. He might as well have looked at the drawings I have been waiting to hear from Mr Ward, 67 Chandos St, Covent Garden He will gladly see you, and I sent him the MS of the Bear and the Goblin. You had better make an appointment with him mentioning my name; and shew him some of your drawings ... continue reading

To the Reverend John Frederick Watkinson Bullock
Elderfield Otterbourne
April 24th 1894

Dear Mr Bullock, I waited to answer till I saw whether an offer of a story I had made was accepted in which case I should have had no time, but I find I have and can manage the two lives[.] I have Hook’s Archbishops, and will make use of your materials gladly. I once had Frances Havergal but gave her away so I shall be glad of the loan

I think Charles Simeon ought to ... continue reading