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...
I have been entreated to send Dr. May to cure her [Ermine], but I think that would be past even his capacities!
There is no heart
breaking about him [the Colonel]; with Rachel, she had made up her mind to immolate her affections at the shrine of her asylum before she found out that she was in no danger. Now I believe in her.
... continue readingHow little I thought when I met dear Joanna Patteson in your drawing-room that it was the last time I should see her! Fanny Patteson had come back, and is sure Joan knew and was thinking for others to the last. . . . I hope you are profiting by the splendid summer weather. I never knew a year of sweeter smells: the sheets of wild honeysuckle ... continue reading
My dear Sir, I have authorized M. Tauchnitz to republish “The Little Duke,” and Mr Sydney Williams tells me that he is about to apply to you for a cast of the frontispiece - I am afraid however that the lithographs can be no longer renewed, and I must reply to him that only the vignette of the little page is still to be had. I believe Mrs Blackburn had the stones broken up after the ... continue reading
My dear Mary, I hope you are strong enough to bear with all the tasks of Christmas, and to feel its joys, through the sorrow that such recurring Seasons bring. I had a day of great happiness at the Enthronement it was such a pleasure to welcome such a Bishop and the whole multitude who filled the Cathedral seemed to have one heart The Hallelujah chorus at the end was so very hearty The 309 clergy ... continue reading