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 Anne It is enough to frighten one to see all one’s words taken so seriously, not that I did not really mean them, but perhaps I spoke more freely from not thinking you would attach so much weight to what so young and so flyaway a person might say. However it is quite right to feel that words have weight. I think I must begin from henceforth to assure you that you ... continue reading
My dear Mary
Katharine must be glad of the reprieve of her husband’s start, but I hope it is not bad for his appointment. How glad I am you have begun so happily at Yealmpton, but the attendance will not be easy to keep up in the dark cold days-. I have had a very pleasant time between Barrow Court – Martin Gibbs’s place, and Somerleaze. Wrington Hannah More’s parish lies between the two, ... continue reading
My dear Mr Warburton
I am afraid that when I think of myself as teaching Standards V and VI I feel your first sections somewhat alarming - though perhaps they are not harder than some of the extracts in the advanced Readers and my country children may be no fair criterion
I do not think that the narrative part is so difficult, but in the generalising. What makes it delightful reading to us - the allusions, ... continue reading
My dear Miss Jacob, First to answer the question I forgot in my last note. That Sphinx is a faithless monster, he (or she) never came to us this month, nor have I heard of one any where. There is a very good new set of acrostics by A. A. G. published by Lothian.
You are very good to take so kindly all my criticisms of the Gates of Paradise. I feel it rather like the atmosphere ... continue reading