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...
My dear Miss Thackeray Did you have a silver gilt button for fastening a glove the day you were here? We found one the next morning but as we had some visitors after you. We waited to ask them, and one of them was gone away, and could not be applied to.
I conclude you are still in your old home, and shall therefore address to you there.
Yours sincerely C M Yonge
I have actually spoilt an ... continue reading
My dear Mr Macmillan You will think there is no end to the irons we have in the fire. But the Population of an Old Pear Tree would be finished if we had not lost a number, and had to renew it. I send you the earlier chapters. The places for the woodcuts are marked in the margin.
But my chief reason for writing is to ask if you have heard of Beugnot’s memoirs - he was ... continue reading
My dear Cousin Arthur Charlotte F Yonge tells me that you are anxious to know what I think of your daughter’s book. Of course I looked it up at once in the Swedish history which, equally of course, was too small to give all the details, though there was quite enough to see that she had full authority for all she said.
The first scene is wonderful, it reminds me nothing so much as that where the ... continue reading
My dear Miss Butler I enclose with the Packet’s warm thanks the pay for Likes & Dislikes. I am so glad to think of the continuation for I think the notion of setting Emily to tame young ladies running to seed an excellent one.
Miss Sturges Bourne has just been conducting a sick cousin to Wiesbaden, and thinking with much diversion of Helen. She was near going to Marienbad itself which would have been amusing. ... continue reading