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...
Dear Madam
A friend of my family, who- being a neighbour, I know better personally than by her handwriting is named Anna Georgina Macaulay, and always goes by the appellation Nina. She is apt to stay a good deal away from home and I concluded that the letter I received was from her. For I suppose I am right in believing that you wrote to ask me to review a book on Scripture evidences and that ... continue reading
My dear Miss Smith, Your story is capital and I am very glad that the power of writing no longer seems to be crushed out of you. The only things I have to say are that I think a little guarding is wanted (which I would do in a note) to shew that part of it is playful since Church restoration is not altogether matter of taste, and some of the deformation was really luxury, family ... continue reading
My dear Mr Tyrwhitt,
There is a chapter on Basilica in the printer’s hands just now. I ought to have sent it up for October and I don’t know how I missed laying my hands on it when I was packing up the MS. I ought to have mentioned it when you wrote to me, and now I am terribly afraid I have given you ‘double double toil and trouble’. When the proofs come ... continue reading
My dear Miss Sewell, I have meant to write to you for a long time past, but you know how one’s good intentions fail one when one is holiday making. However my holiday comes to an end tomorrow, and I hope to be heartily at work again next week. Meantime, I ought to have long ago confessed that it was all a delusion of mine about that Lanfranc article. John Coleridge had meant to write one, ... continue reading