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 wish you could see my young ladies, who have advanced to copy-books since they were at Puslinch. All their uncles, aunts, and cousins are staying with them, and in the midst of all poor Rosalie’s horse threw her, and she had a strain which is keeping her on the sofa. One evening when everybody but her and her friend Isabella were gone to see the Eddystone, they heard a carriage come to ... continue reading

Elderfield Otterbourne
Jan 1st 1897

Dear Mr Macmillan I like the appearance of the proof copy of the Ben Beriah very much and perhaps it would be best to work out the edition. The doubt in my mind would be whether it will be favorably [sic] received as ranging with my tales and novels. I suppose there is no possibility of adding a preface now, I had not put one because it would not have suited in St Nicholas, and I ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
June 20th 1865

Sir, I am obliged by your letter, but I am afraid that other engagements are likely to prevent my becoming a contributor to the proposed journal—and at any rate I could undertake nothing without fuller information.

Yours faithfully C M Yonge

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My dear Miss Yonge,                                                                        I omitted yesterday to say that I had sent to your bankers the amount of £275 – due at midsummer. Also that I am reading Miss Peard’s “story of Prayer Book” , and I hope with perhaps a ... continue reading