Dear Mr Macmillan, I should prefer keeping the Clever Woman uniform with the other tales, as I think a good many people have a set of them, to which they would add it. And I should be scolded by half my friends for coming out in the 3 vol shape!

I am glad the Trial has done well. I see you are advertising a cheap edition. What are to be the terms for it.

I have this morning ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Somehow my direction book has been faithless and I have missed Mr Masson’s address, so I am sending the new chapters of Dove etc. direct to you. I am afraid the story may be thought to flag a little just here, but I could not help it, and there is plenty of incident to come after the next division.

I think Miss Sewell’s idea was to divide by periods. I think I should ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge The M S. has come all right. Sending as early as - I am thankful indeed you do, to address him here is the simplest way. His private address is 2 Newton Villas Finchley New Road. N.W.

I shall be very glad to hear about the result of your conference with Miss Sewell. My only feeling in the suggestion I made re - Montfort was that each volume - supposing it is found ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan I think Miss Sewell and I pretty well came to this conclusion that the first of our periods should begin with William the Conqueror and end with the absolution of King John, so as to make its leading idea the great strife for supremacy between Church and State. I believe we have plenty of materials for a volume. She under takes the compilation of the materials, and I am to write the ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge Your scheme as decided by Miss Sewell and yourself seems to me very admirable. The one question is the compactness and vivid unity, which will be hard rather in an [illegible] such as you propose. But with artists like yourself [and] Miss Sewell there should be no difficulty[.] the thing ought to be very interesting indeed.

I have read all the Prince and the Page down to the present month. I think it ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge Mr Maclear’s address is

Rev G. F. M. 24 Elgin Crescent Kensington Park Gardens[[footnote:1]

Many thanks for your kind [illegible] about the illustrations. I think on the whole it would be dangerous to employ an unpractised pencil. On some future occasion I shall be very glad indeed.

My people at home have been reading your cameos, and think they would make a nice book. I am inclined to think so too - in a cheap form

Yours ever ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns,

I have been waiting to write till I could see whether we could manage bringing Alice Coleridge up to Winton House, as we quite hoped to do at the beginning of her visit, but our having other friends with us all last week made it impossible to be contrived, and now she is going away on Thursday and I do not see my way for either tomorrow or next day, so I ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan I send the rest of the MS of the Dove in the Eagle’s Nest as it is all finished now, and I shall be going from home about the beginning of September into Devonshire first, and then perhaps to London some time in October - when I hope I may see you.

How soon will the last chapters of the Prince and the Page be wanted? Since it began to come out I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge The MS. reached us safely. I will [illegible] distribution in the months

We shall be very glad to see you when you come to town. It is just possible that I may be gone to America, but my wife & sister are at home; and we recently made a valuable addition to our neighbourhood , 'the author of John Halifax',whose husband Mr Craik, has become my partner, has taken a house quite near ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Thanks for the cheque. I enclose the receipt.

I do not know whether the British Museum has a copy of Theurdanck - probably it would I think, but if you should be in Oxford, there is a beauty at the Bodleian, a much better one than that which I have here, which is only lent to me.

You should also look at the wonderful wood cuts in ‘Der Weise König.’ There is a demon sitting ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Thanks, here are the receipts. I think I once got 5/ in like manner before from the Cape. I am not able yet to speak with any certainty of our plans. We have just offered ourselves to my uncle for the 8th of September, and there is such a vista of relations to stay with when once we get into Devonshire, that I do not think we shall come to London till the ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Most of these illustrations I like very much, they are full of life, and the King very dignified, if they are lithographed I suppose it is too late for alteration, but the faces of Eleanor in the second, and of the Page in the first are rather distressing, and I think that in the second the page is rather too short and stocky to give the notion of one who was to ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan By no means did I mean the graceful little lamp on Golden Deeds - nor the Dove in the Sunday Book - nor the well in Cawnpore. I meant such a high priest and book as are outside Smith’s Biblical dictionary; or some of the whole pictures of men and women one often sees upon books, - spoiling the whole effect of the real illustration within. It was odd that I asked my ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Will you direct this on if you know the address - if not perhaps Mr Williams would kindly do so. M. Pichot wrote to ask my sanction for translation of the Dove, and I answered that I had already given permission to Mlle Souvestre. But the next thing I heard was that Mlle Souvestre had given it up for want of time so that I must write to him again, and I had ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I have written a new preface and sent it to Spottiswood. If I did not send the former one to you I wonder what I did with it, I suppose it will come out of some strange corner.

I am glad you and Mrs Daniel think well of the Chaplet. I only wish I could give my French ladies more French grace. I have about four chapters more written but not re written, and ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, I suppose the Prince and the Page will be out next week, so I enclose a list of the presentation copies. I hope I sent back the last proof, but it was only of the index, so it matters not at all, unless it has caused a delay. It has been a confused week, for the little girl, after some days of hopeful improvement suddenly lost ground and died early on Thursday morning. ... continue reading

Dear mr Macmillan, The Prince and Page look very well, and I hope will thrive as well as they look. I think I sent the names for the copies - but I suppose the general mass of them are not ready yet.

If my brother’s M S about the Reading Biscuits is not available and can be recovered he would be very glad to have it again.

With all Christmas wishes to the Elms party

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan I think I was to have 6 copies of the Prince and Page sent to myself - also in the same parcel one of the Heir of Redclyffe. I have seen nothing of them so perhaps they have been forgotten or come to some mischance by the way.

With all new years greetings Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan, Thanks for your kind letter and for the payment. I quite agree to the Sunday Library being brought out in parts, as a good plan. I think if it were made pretty and attractive children would take it in for themselves. The difficulty to me at present seems to be, how to embrace the various subjects without being desultory. I suppose you mean that each part would be complete in itself, though three ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Our start from home is fixed for the 30th of this month. I suppose there is no chance of my getting any copies of the Dove before I start. I was obliged to delay further by having a revise of the preface where the printers had contrived to make a good many gratuitous mistakes. I never knew Messrs Clay so long printing anything. If there is no chance of your sending me a ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan

It is rather difficult to arrange the order of these books. Heartsease was out before the Daisy Chain indeed those four that I numbered first were meant to answer to the four Seasons, and ought to go together

In point of date, the Daisy Chain and the Young Stepmother are the next, but the Daisy Chain Trial and Pillars ought to come together

What is to be done about the lesser historical ones, ... continue reading