Dear Mr Craik

Many thanks for your letter and cheque. I am glad to see your writing again, and that the first dreariness of return has been faced.

I am glad the cheap edition is doing so well, it is capitally got up and bound, and I regret nothing but the Daisy Chain illustrations and those to the Trial. Those to the intermediate edition were much better.

I have had some correspondence about a story of the historical ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

I am very glad you approve of ‘the Reputed Changeling’ for a name.

He shall come on the 18th or 19th as soon as I have read him to an old friend and critic with whom I am going to stay on the 11th - when I shall put some last touches and corrections.

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

Here is the Reputed Changeling. It really is a much better story than Beechcroft at Rockstone which was chiefly written to run on with the Monthly Packet and satisfy people insatiable of continuations, so that as a young people’s tale it suffers from being treated as a novel.

Has it gone to Tauchnitz?

What a curious book Reuben Sachs is! Is Amy Levy a genuine Jew- ?

She seems to have stripped off all the illusions, ... continue reading

Sir

My only paper in Atalanta is on the Life of Mr Keble. Those on Novel writing are by Mr Walter Besant

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Canon Warburton

‘Foundations of the Creed’ by the Bishop of Carlisle has just been mentioned to me in a letter as a particularly good book for the present time. Perhaps someone else has set it down, but it is better to run the risk of mentioning what is known than to leave it out.

That Pearl story haunts me. I think I see how it may make a very nice little romance after incubation!

Yours ... continue reading

Dear Miss Durton

Your Good Friday has been a long time on its way, owing to the misdirection, but I have it now, and I wish I could have got it into the Monthly Packet for Easter, though even if it had come direct it would not have been in time for April.

I am very glad to hear more of Ottavia’s family and will insert this when I can. Perhaps another time you had better write ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge

Will you kindly read the enclosed and if you approve of the petition will you kindly sign it and send it back to me here?

very truly yours Walter Besant

Dear Sir

I am obliged for your letter, which confirms the view I have had for many years that it is not possible for a person of a different nationality to draw a thorough portrait of one described from within, as it were. You remember that in dealing with foreign scenes, Scott always took a Scotch or English hero - in whose person he saw all the surroundings

In fact I have never had any intimate knowledge ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Thanks for the last set of my books, and for the Kingsley’s whereof we have been going through a course.

If I might have the payment for the first edition of Beechcroft at Rockstone I should be glad.

I suppose the last volume of Cameos is waiting for its index, but I hope it will be out before the season is over.

The Reputed Changeling is a much better thing I hope than the Rockstone ... continue reading

Sir,

I hope it will be possible for the Council of the Royal Literary Fund favorably to consider the application on behalf of Miss Florence Wilford.

I have known her for nearly thirty years as a person of great merit, personally, and considerable talent and industry as a writer of works of excellent tone.

More than ordinary troubles in her family have left her very reduced means, and have tried her health and spirits most severely, through most ... continue reading

My dear Mr Freeman,

Your letter followed me, on an expedition to Salisbury, where I have been seeing ‘the moot’. They had a moot there with the speakers at the summer house, and the people on the terraces, before one of the Elections, and the voices were perfectly heard. The art of hearing has been lost or rather that of making places to be heard in.

I have changed all the peas into pease. I ... continue reading

My dear Mr Dean

Please tell me if I am wrong in objecting to have the 1st Psalm set down wholly as Maccabean? It is in Mr Rodwell’s comments on the Psalms in his new Newbery Magazine which I have had to notice. There was no previous explanation why any Psalms should be said to be Maccabean (though of course I know it is said of more obvious ones, though I don’t believe it) ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes

Next year’s programme is my own Two Penniless Princesses - historical longish chapters. Miss Agnes Giberne has promised a story - and the Storm in a Teacup has to go on another half year I tried doubling the chapters, but there was not room. I think it is a mistake to sacrifice the story to the volume, as often in those I read, I see the development has been injured to get ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes

Thanks for the cheque. I think it is a very good thing to cheapen Womankind, especially as it is getting a start through the Mothers’ Union taking it up. It will also be well to have New Ground at 2s Mr Scarth of the Waterside Mission is very anxious to have Friday’s Child published separately for the sake of the sailors. I believe Miss Crompton has been urged to write to you ... continue reading

My dear Fanny

Mrs Selwyn comes on Thursday, the Bishop on Saturday. It will be a very thing if you do go down to enliven Mrs Selwyn on Friday for it has so turned out that this week is the only one when I can go down to see my poor dear old May, so I am going down there from Tuesday till Friday evening or Saturday morning I am not sure which. I am ... continue reading

My dear Lucy

If I can get a lift I shall be very glad to come to you, but it must rather depend on the ‘other house.’ Does George know that we have the Bishop Selwyn, his mother, children and new wife at the Vicarage for a month?

Your affectionate cousin C M Yonge

Dear Mr Innes

Many thanks for the account and the cheques for which I enclose receipts.

I will keep the Molyneuxes till you return, as they give much pleasure here. I think it should be observed to the author that there is an inconsistency in making the estate come through the mother and then placing a Molyneux ancestry there.

Also I think the Baptism of Eggs is an expression not desirable in a child’s book.

When you return there ... continue reading

My dear Mr Freeman,

Thank you for the Report, which entertained us much. I have come to the conclusion that Reporters think anecdotes meant to give them repose I am sure I have seen them resting while a story was being told, and I have looked for it afterwards in vain, but I thought it was a peculiarity of our Winchester reporters!

It was a pity all Hannah’s parishes would not join! I see Tom Poole was ... continue reading

My dear Bella

I think the day had better be Friday, as Gertrude has been rather out of order these last few days, but is picking up again. It will be a great day of church decoration, but I shall be sure to have done by 4 o’clock, and I shall be very glad to see you and Miss Fawcett.

Yours affectionately C M Yonge

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

Dear Miss Yonge,

New Eng. Dictionary

Mr. Fitzedward Hall has given me a reference for Clidders to Heir of Redclyffe ch. vii., which we cannot find. Would it be possible for you to send me the quotation & with the proper reference? Literary quotations for the word are not very easily got.

We know your hand well in the earlier Dictionary material, though it has not been my fortune to see it often in later times.

Yours very truly, [[person:1074]J.A.H. ... continue reading

Dear Sir

I send the quotation with another still more to the purpose- but I should not put in two ds- as certainly Hampshire always calls the plant cli-ders. However no doubt there is authority.

I was sorry to drop the dictionary work but occupations thickened on me so that I could not keep it up

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Ingram

Thank you for your letter. I have put notes of quotation to Mme Bunsen’s phrase. It is always a difficulty to know whether to use them when tenses are changed, and only a word or two exactly quoted.

I think I could undertake Duchess Sarah, and I should be glad of the loan of your documents but I must not think about her till Prince Albert is off my hands, and I do not ... continue reading

consciously – in extremity breaks his heart over it and is converted by his failure. I have had my head very full of it. I want to know what you think of the Apples of Sodom, for we have various controversies about it, Christabel thinks the one religious man becoming morbid and accustomed a mistake and likely to promote the popular fancy about good men and clergy, and Miss Bramston says ... continue reading

My dear Frances

Thank you for your letter. We don’t deal in squills, but I have just brought in various primroses and violets, though there was hardly a berry for the Church. However the holly leaves are much finer than when the berries have starved them.

Gertrude was tolerable and could enjoy her cards and presents, and shells go on as her great delight at present, that wonderful step-step father of hers has an endless variety of ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes

I specially desired Clowes to put two chapters of the Norse Literature in type, and send them at once, because Miss Oswald wanted time to send them to Iceland. You said there was no reason they should not. Now they have just sent in the proof of only one - so that they have evidently never heeded my letter.

I am sorry because Miss Oswald must think it my fault.

Yours truly C M ... continue reading