My dear Mr Palgrave

You will think there is no end to the books I am doing, but the National Society has set me on making a historical Reader for schools interspersed - after Reader fashion with poems. May I have an extract from your verses about Charles’s flight. They are so much easier than Wordsworth’s sonnet- and may I borrow one or two more from that same book? The Montfort one, I think but I ... 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

Messrs Harper

I am much obliged for the £10 for Love and Life received on the 14th yesterday. I am also much obliged to you for sending me your ‘paper for young people.’ I ventured to extract a short poem on the Plumes of Crecy for a Reading Book for schools making however a few alterations to bring it more into accordance with history than romance

Yours faithfully C.M. Yonge

Dear Mr Duncan

Gray is difficult with all the notes, and so is Anstice, so perhaps they had better come out. I did not mean the poetry to have been numbered as Lessons but to have stood as a sort of embellishment to be learnt or not according to need - or understanding I should rather have omitted the conversation between Arthur and Hubert than the account of the murder of the Princes in ... continue reading

Dear Mr Duncan

I am glad you have come to another edition. I am looking at the corrections, beginning at the end and hoping to finish by post time.

Sir Walter Scott spells Stewart thus—and I was told that Stuart was only adopted when the family forgot the proper spelling of their name in France.

I made the genealogy through the Scottish kings instead of through the wife of Henry I better to introduce their names and as ... continue reading

My dear Margaret

So many thanks for sending me Miss Smedley. I had a good deal of her in the Readers, but I shall borrow more now. I wish her verses had been more known but I think they will grow into part of the common stock of knowledge of poetry in our youth. I sincerely rejoice at your brother’s appointment not only is it good for him, but what a load it takes from your ... continue reading