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...

Puslinch Yealmpton
Oct 12th 1867

My dear Christabel If it is copyright, I think they ought to give you at least £10, you did not sell your copyright to the Eagle and it may sometimes make a difference in case of one’s wanting to collect short stories together into a volume

I do not know if this is the right sum, but it seems to me about fair

yours affectionately and much hurried C M Yonge

I shall be here till the 30th so ... continue reading

Otterbourne, Winchester.
Feb 21st [1862 ]
My dear Sir John, I asked Milly to thank you and tell you that I was taking time to ponder over your kind suggestion about old Lauderdale’s remains – and I think I should like to transfer the sight of the book to Dr May, who shall tell Leonard of it. I had already made his son in law Hector a Dorsetshire Squire, so that he would bring the Doctor to Portland and introduce him to ... continue reading
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Oct 10th 1866

Dear Sir, Many thanks for the poem which is to be placed with a collection of autographs made by a member of my family

Yours truly C M Yonge

... continue reading
Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
Novr 23d [after 1865]

My dear Madam That poem on the Sabbath Bells was given me by Lady Lucy Herbert, Lord Powis’s sister, at the time when she was collecting subscriptions for bells for Auckland Cathedral New Zealand. She sent it to me undoubtingly to be printed with an appeal we were then making. She has since married and I cannot remember her present name - but perhaps you know her, and at any rate her sister, Lady [[person:680]Harriet ... continue reading