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 Mary Anne Dyson
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester
September 30, 1868
My dear Marianne Mr. Wither is at the Hospital to-day or he would have written to you; he will write on Saturday. Meantime there is only to say that we are quiet and even cheerful, going to church and walking in the garden and talking over many things. Julian and Frances all kindness. I shall probably return to Puslinch with Anne, but there is much to set in order, and Julian and I are executors together. ... continue reading
The Right Reverend John Coleridge Patteson to Charlotte Mary Yonge
Norfolk Island
November 24, 1869.
My dear Cousin, To-day we married three young couples: the bridegrooms,Robert Pantatun, William Pasvorang, and Marsden Sawa, who have been many years with us, and are all Communicants; the brides, Emily Milerauwe, Lydia Lastitia, and Rhoda Titrakrauwe, who were baptized a year ago. The Chapel was very prettily dressed up with lilies and many other flowers. The bridegrooms wore white trousers, shirts, &c., the brides wore pretty simple dresses and flowers in their hair. We crowded as ... continue reading
To the Reverend Henry Parry Liddon
New College
June 4th [1869]

Dear Mr Liddon Thank you for your very kind answer. A letter will be an excellent way of conveying your recollections. I think considering what Hursley Vicarage was, it would have been perfect treason to have made notes of the daily life and conversation - What seems to me most wanted is something to give an idea of Mr. Keble’s greatness and his championship - and this Sir J Coleridge writing from an equality and without ... continue reading

To Helena Mary Heathcote
Elderfield, Otterbourne
July 25, 1899

My dear Ellie- Thank you for your loving little note. Did you see in the Hants Chronicle a little bit of what I said after the speeches, of the Bishop of Guildford and Mr. Warburton? I could not help, when they said I had made clergy and good men seem real, almost murmuring that my good men were not ideals, but I had really known their equals (and superiors) in reality. Mr. Warburton was ... continue reading