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 the Reverend James Edward Vaux
[Elderfield] Otterbourne, Winchester
[c. 1892-4]
[To the Rev. James Edward Vaux, probably in response to the first edition of his book on Church Folklore] [Tells him that around Otterbourne blacksmiths explode gunpowder on their anvils on St. Clement's Day. Describes the services she could remember in old Otterbourne Church.] [The people] made the responses in a full harmonious cadence as if it were the tradition of a chant. [Tells him that at Otterbourne it was the custom to decorate the church with ... continue reading
To Frances Mary Peard
Elderfield
Decr 27th 1889

My dear Frances

Thank you for your letter. We don’t deal in squills, but I have just brought in various primroses and violets, though there was hardly a berry for the Church. However the holly leaves are much finer than when the berries have starved them.

Gertrude was tolerable and could enjoy her cards and presents, and shells go on as her great delight at present, that wonderful step-step father of hers has an endless variety of ... continue reading

To Maria Edith Walker
Elderfield Otterbourne
Sept 18th [1899]

Dear Madam I have found my Puzzle for a Curious Girl - 2d edition, 1805, given to my mother ‘Miss Fanny Bargus’ as her name is written. The illustrations are cuts, very tightly dressed, the father in knee breeches, the servant opening the carriage door in a cocked hat. I was guilty of painting the first cuts very badly indeed

I have also ‘the Little Queen’ in the Children’s Miscellany where are also Little ... continue reading

To Alexander Macmillan
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Decr 7th [1864]

Dear Mr Macmillan Please to let me correct two things in the list of presentation copies of the Golden Deeds

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Miss Margaret Lonsdale 28 Westbourne Terrace W

Miss Charlotte Fursdon Fursdon Cadbury Tiverton

... continue reading