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...
Dearest Lizzie- Here am I writing to you out upon the lawn under the pleasant shade of the berberis. There ought to be a nightingale singing, for one lives at the corner, but he is a lazy bird, and year after year always is nearly silent after the first fortnight, though yesterday I not only heard but saw his fellow singing with all his might in a young oak, making his tail and wings quiver.
I had ... continue reading
My dear Edith, I enclose the sum due to you for the Gates of Paradise. You cannot think how much they are liked, and by people whose opinion I care very much about. I have only had one objection and that from a lady whom I do not consider the judge she thinks herself. Do you not think you could manage some day to come and stay with us, we should get so much better acquainted ... continue reading
My dear Edith I am so glad to have heard from you though I wish I could hear that Malvern was invigorating you, to say nothing of Dr Gully. Miss Dyson is the niece of my friend; I have only once seen her. She, ie Miss Dyson of Malvern is the daughter [of] old Mr Frank Dyson of Tidworth whose name I think you must know and do not take it as a bad omen, has ... continue reading
Dear Mrs Mercier, I enclose a cheque for the remainder of Campanella and send at the same time a proof of Mr Peabody, hoping you will not sacrifice the modest request which seems to me too good to be lost.
Thank you for Miss Tucker’s address I hope she has heard from Mr Warne by this time
Yours sincerely C M Yonge
Lady Betty is an admirable story
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