Dear Madam,

We shall have much pleasure in taking the stock of your books under our charge and publishing them for you on commission. When we have had a little experience of them and how they sell now, we shall be better able to advise and suggest something definite with regard to cheap editions or the like.

The Trial we calculate could be got into 2 nice crown 8vo volumes selling at 12/-. We will give £200 ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge I suppose you would like to have the 'Trial' stereotyped. This can be done now at nearly the same cost as the Composition would be hereafter. For readjusting the page and having stereotype plate cast the expense would be £68. I do not know how you have arranged the matter on former occasions. But I suppose that you would probably prefer to purchase the plates and have them as your own property.

The ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, I suppose the Trial ought to be stereotyped that it may stand on the same footing with the other books. In all the former cases I have been at the whole expense of printing, paper, binding &c, and have thus had all the profits, except the commission on the sales - I think the arrangement with regard to the Trial was that I was to receive £200 for 2,000 copies; I conclude ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge We have at length got the Trial ready. I am afraid you will think we have been somewhat dilatory, which indeed has been the case. Our printer has been busy, and it was somewhat hard to keep him moving with due speed. You will I hope be satisfied with the result as regards the look [illegible] and I think it comes out at a favourable time. We sold about 1200 to start with. ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge Will you kindly send back the book by Weinhold. It is for Miss Otté who is going to do a history of North Europe. Miss Keary also has been at work on the same region.

I meant to have dropped you a note tell [sic] you why I sent you Duncans book which I stumbled on in an old book-shop, where after an old habit I was prowling about. I thought this will ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Otterbourn was turned upside down yesterday by a grand wedding, so that I could accomplish nothing but sending off the book without writing.

I am much obliged by your proposal about the Clever Woman, and shall be well satisfied with the terms you propose, - and very glad not to have the stereotyping taken out of the £200. It strikes me that there ought to be another sheet in the first volume; as there ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, This is a quick fire upon a busy man, but there are two or three things to say, and first that Mme de Witt has written to say that the Christian Names have not reached her, and asking whether you have sent them through any Paris bibliothèque where they could be enquired for. I also enclose a direction to which I should like to send a copy of the Golden Deeds. It ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge I ought to have acknowledged the copy for the new number earlier, but I wanted to write you a longer letter which I cant do today after all.

I would be glad to see what more you have written of Bethlehem, when you have satisfied yourself - or at least approximately - who could satisfy themselves on such a subject. The young Artist is ready to work whenever you like.

Shall I pay the ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Thanks, I should prefer having the monthly sum in cheques here, but the £200 to be paid to Messrs Hoare. I hope the proofs are coming though it is rather late if the Dove is to come out this month. I am afraid there are some anachronisms in it, and I did not give it the looking over that I should have done if I had thought of not seeing it again.

Here ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge The cheque for £200 was sent you last night. My clerk reminded that former remittances were so made. The monthly payments will be sent the same way.

I am going to have the second chapter as the first set up in type. I will venture to go over it and make any suggestions that strike me.

Yours ever faithfully A. Macmillan

Dear Mr Macmillan, Many thanks. Our letters have crossed but the enclosure was welcome in any way of having it.

I hope to finish Abraham today and send it

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Miss Yonge The photograph is from a picture by Mr Farren the young artist whom I wanted to illustrate your Bethlehem. I was anxious to know that you thought him up to the mark. The picture was from Kingsleys Saints Tragedy, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary carrying her child to the altar in the early morning. I think it indicates a power considerably above average of entering into a spiritual conception. But I should be ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, Many thanks for the cheque for £25 for this month’s Dove. I am not sure whether a letter is still a sufficient receipt, if not please let me know, and I will send a stamped one, but receipt stamps are not easy to come by when one is out of the article, unless we are sending to Winchester, therefore I think it better to acknowledge the cheque at once. And at the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Would you be so kind as to add your signature to this cheque. I never perceived the omission till I sent it to be changed.

My brother has been seeing Huntley and Palmers biscuit manufactory, and has written an account of it, which he tells me to offer to you, in case it should be supposed suitable to the Magazine, it is really very curious and entertaining.

I am afraid the earlier cameos want a ... 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

My dear Miss Yonge on money [?] I enclose a cheque as usual. I am off on a brief holiday to Scotland, my American trip being abandoned for this year. I hope to be home for good & may it be so - by the end of September and quite looking forward to seeing you when you come to London in October. In case you have any point of importance to bring before the press, a ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan I enclose the receipt with many thanks. Your letter followed me hither this morning. I think we shall be in these parts about a fortnight longer - and shall then come to a place about a couple of hours of London - whence I hope to run up for a few hours to town, and I shall then be able to talk over matters with you. I fancy it will be somewhere ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Happening to have an excess of M.S. luggage, I am rather glad to send off an instalment of “the Chaplet of Pearls” instead of packing it up. It threatens to be longer than the Dove, and there is a good deal more still to be written, and probably rewritten.

I believe I omitted to say that it would be the most convenient way to me if you could pay the £235, the balance of ... 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, 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, Thanks for the books which the carrier will probably bring today. I will betake myself to St John’s pupils at once, though it is rather a sudden change from the banks of the Granicus, where I left Alexander.

And there is another thing that I should like to know ie - the sum that will come to me both for the Pupils of St John and the Danvers Papers. The reason I ask is ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge I am much obliged to you for so kindly undertaking the new work I hope when you are once in it you will find it not less pleasant than the others.

I propose paying you the same for that as I will for the Worthies. The amounts which will be due to you next half year & part or the whole we can pay you any time after August 1. are:-

Pupils £200 for copyright

Cameos ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge I have the pleasure of sending you a statement of publishing doings for the past year, which I am glad to see leaves a larger balance in your favour than we have yet had to pay you. May it go on increasing! This we cannot quite hope as there have been no balances of reprint against you at all this year.

Mr Masson who is much pleased with your story, thinks the title ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik, I hope this letter is a sufficient acknowledgement of the £25, as I have no receipt stamp at hand and this village does not provide such articles, and as they must not be bought of the unprivileged I cannot beg or borrow too often from our worthy neighbours at the shop

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Miss Yonge Yesterday Mr Craik paid £200 into Hoare’s in your a/c. I hope my not telling you before will have caused you no [illegible]

I am very sorry you do not like the illustrations. It is now impossible to get fresh ones done, and pardon me saying I really like them. I hope you will get reconciled to them by and by

[Rest of letter indecipherable as is the one, dated 22 January 1868, that follows]

Dear Miss Yonge, I enclose the monthly cheque with best remembrances.

I hope the Cameos will get out by & by. The volume proves thinner than I had expected and I am making calculations as to price. This first edition at 4/6 or even 5/- will not yield much. Are you disposed to sell us the copy right?

Yours very faithfully A. Macmillan

Dear Miss Yonge, We will give you the £200 for the copyright of the Cameos. It is a rather full sum but the book is of a kind we like to possess. Some day we will get a series of actual Cameos engraved for it. But in the mean time we contract [illegible] with one for the title page & one for the cover. I think you will certainly like the look of the book.

We send ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan Thanks for the cheque and for the proposal about the Historical selections. I am sending it on to Miss Sewell to see whether she consents, it is what I myself should prefer, thinking joint accounts would be troublesome. The Cameo looks exceedingly well and gives an uncommon appearance. I should like a copy to be sent to the Dean of Chichester and one to Madame de Witt. To other friends I think ... continue reading

My dear Mr Macmillan, I am afraid I have been guilty of a misunderstanding, and of leading Miss Sewell into one, but I thought we were to have £200 for the copyright of the Historical Selections, and I must say I think it is hardly compensation for all the trouble it has given. Miss Sewell has connection enough to secure it a good sale as a school book and we should be quite willing to take ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I am obliged for the cheque which came safely this morning.

My dear Mother died on Monday, the end coming much more suddenly than we had expected - and very mercifully to close the long course of feebleness of mind and body.

I do not think that I shall be able to do much steady work for some weeks to come, but after that, I hope to return to regular ways

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan I enclose a receipt with many thanks, and rejoicings that the books still continue to prosper. I should be finishing another Worthy today if I had not five young cousins spending the day with me, but at any rate old Curius Dentatus will come before the end of the week, I chose him as the representative of the old hardy uneducated peasant king that the first Romans were. Then comes Scipio for the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik ‘Enquiring friends’ kept me in such a whirl on Saturday from the moment I came home that I could not acknowledge the very agreeable parcel I found waiting me, which I need not say I was very glad to see. It is certainly a pleasant amount to look forward to and I see that it does not include the sum for the Abridged Edition of Bishop Patteson, any more than for Lady Hester.

I ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan

Thank you, I shall be very glad to know approximately the value of those copy rights. I suppose they are worth far more to me than they would be to anyone else, and that if I wished to raise a sum of money, say £5000 or 6000, it would be better to use them as security, since the proceeds would enable me annually to pay off something than to attempt the sale of ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Could you give me any idea what is the value of my copy rights, I do not mean that I want to part with them, but it would be convenient to me to know what is likely to be the full value of my property, and what I could raise by them in case of need

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

Thanks for the estimate of the copyrights, which is a good deal what I expected, as I thought they must be more valuable to me than to anyone else.

I cannot think what Clay is about. A month ago he wrote to me in a great hurry for more copy of the Cameos saying you wanted the third volume finished, I sent him up at once all but the last two or three chapters ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Many thanks for this payment, which considering that I had £400 before ought indeed to satisfy me.

I wonder when Clay means to go on with the Scripture readings

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Mr Craik

I am rather anxious to know the upshot of the new arrangement which we were to have this year into the details of which I do not think we went.

What however is really important to me to know quickly is whether I am likely to receive enough at Christmas to warrant me in promising a payment of £250 - remembering that I have had £200 in advance

I want very much to ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Many thanks for your letter, I send the agreement, with which I am quite satisfied. I also send by train four nos of the Christian Remembrancer containing four papers

Folk Lore & Old Stories

Lord Seaton & his Regiment

The La Ferronays family

Eugenie de Guérin

There are also- only I have not disinterred them Miss Sewell’s Principles of Education and the Life of Bishop Mackenzie but these will be enough for you to see whether ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik,

I return the Agreement signed with many thanks. I shall be quite satisfied with the arrangement about the £1000 for the copyright being paid half next March and half the March after.

One book you do not mention, the Christian names, I should be very glad if the end of that could be so got rid of, that I could cut it down correct it, add some recent discoveries and something about surnames, ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

I am sure I ought to be satisfied, considering too the sum for the copyrights in March, but just one question. Have I ever been paid for the last volume of Cameos, I do not think I have, as it came out just after last years settlement I have always had £100 for each volume.

I am afraid I have been very stupid about both French histories and I am still waiting for ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Many thanks for the payment which comes pleasantly early this year.

My Spaniards and Moors are progressing, but I suppose I had better finish all before I send them, as if abridgement is needful it is better done on a whole than on a part.

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

I enclose the receipt with many thanks for the cheque, also for Bp Patteson and the loan of Islam.

When I can, I should like to add to Bp Patteson that the mission has learnt the manner of his death, and that it was the women who placed his body in the canoe and sent it out to meet the boat. I have not a copy left of Pioneers and Founders, so could you ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Thank you first for your answer about magazine rights. I am going to try the paper a little longer.

Next thanks for the account. I am very glad to know what I have to look to. I suppose scarcity of money tells more on the sale of books than anything else, but all things considered this is very good for the year 1878.

If I find that I want £100 or £150 in advance ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

You were so kind as to say you would let me have an advance on account. I should be very glad if you would send me a cheque for £150

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

One line to acknowledge the safe receipt of £150 on account with many thanks I don’t suppose you will receive this tomorrow but accept with it my best Christmas wishes

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

Many, many thanks for prompt payment, an agreeable sight on a winter’s morning I think the story in the Monthly Packet will finish there about next spring It is not longer than the Three Brides, but has been in short chapters. I have not finished writing it yet, but the beginning may be printed when it is convenient. I am correcting the Moors and Christians gradually, and will send the result ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan

Old proofs of these Christmas stories have fortunately been discovered so I send them off herewith.

I find I must ask you to be kind enough to let me have £200 on account, or else £100 now and another £100 before Christmas. There have been some unexpected calls upon me which drive me to ask this favour of you, though I am sorry to have to do so so early in the year

Yours ... 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 Craik

Thank you for your letter, and your kind promise of £200 for this edition of Unknown to History. I hope the cheap movement will be successful. I own I should like to see the Heir of Redclyffe and Heartsease in shilling and sixpenny editions I think they would have a great sale.

Please let a copy of ‘Unknown to History’ go to

Miss Coleridge Manor House Ottery St Mary

I thought it would have come while ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

Many thanks for the payment. The knowledge that the amount for Unknown to History is coming is quite sufficient for me at present. I have been kept waiting about the Christian Names by Mr H Jenner of the British Museum who promised to set me right about the Keltic mythology but I suspect has forgotten all about it. I am desiring him to let me have it again, and let me do ... continue reading

Messrs Harper

Gentlemen

I am much obliged for your remittance of £5 for Stray Pearls

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

I am very happy to accept your offer of £25 for the Australian edition of Chantry House.

I wish I could disinter A Citizen’s account of the Bristol riots of 1832. It is referred to in the Life of Bishop Gray and said to be excellent; but I could not get it from the London Library, and I wish I could see it before the proofs of that Chapter of Chantry House are irrevocable.

Yours ... continue reading

Gentlemen

I am much obliged for £10 for the publication of the Modern Telemachus I am sending the receipt to Mr Asgood

I remain &c C M Yonge

Messrs Harper

Dear Mr Innes

Thank you. Mr Smith generously sends me £50 in January £40 for my editorship and £10 for the subeditor. The other payments this month are for

Angela, Miss Alice Weber 10 Randolph Road Maida Hill

The Georgian Princess Miss Dempster Villa Rey Cannes

(She is author of Vera and rather a great gun, so should have full pay)

Papers on Rome The Rev Wm Jeffreys Hills Beaufort Road Winchester

St Paul Miss Selina Gaye 14 Artesian Road Bayswater

Miracle Plays Alfred Pollard Esq British Museum

Old World Legend Mrs Keir Moilliet Abbot’s Legh Malvern

I ... continue reading

Dear Mr Smith

Here is the receipt with many thanks. I ought to have returned Madge Wylie sooner. If of the right length, it would be a grand thing to have a Greek story for the Christmas number it would be so much out of the ordinary beat. I have three or four come in already, not at all bad ones - but I hope they may still be excelled

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Innes

If you look at the notice at p. 499 of the May no and 599 of the June you will see the fees as to questions fully explained. In fact I do not know what more there is to say about them.

Bishop Jenner has carefully looked over the Prayer book Lessons and returned them to me and I am going over them with his criticisms. Half is quite ready if you want it ... 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

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

Sir I am obliged to you for forwarding the cheque for £25 for the first edition of the Two Guardians.

I am at present too much engaged to think of publishing anything in the Churchman’s Companion, though I am obliged to you for the proposal.

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Sir I am much obliged for the draft for £300 which I received this morning as well as for the book which accompanied it.

I am glad to hear that the Lances of Lynwood have begun to go off so fast

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Innes, I do not suppose the understanding was ever absolutely clear, I have certainly always paid over £20 to Miss Finlaison half in summer and half in winter, and I have, as you say had £40 in summer, and £50 in winter, but I an impression that I had £10 more for the Christmas number. Indeed I am quite sure that Mr Smith gave me £10 more for the subeditor, and that I made ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes I send the Cameo that had better precede this one returned. I found that I had repeated Frederick the Great &c; and must alter.

Yours truly C M Yonge

Is it not time to hear of my accounts

Dear Mr Innes I think as you propose Langley Adventures ‘Langley School’ Royalty at the rate of 2/3 of a 1d in the shilling on the published price. ‘Langley Adventures’ Royalty at the rate of ¾d in the shilling on the published price beyond the first 2000 sold which are free of royalty, in the case of Langley Adventures only: twelve copies counting as twelve in all cases.’ might be transferred to you, and the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik I shall be very happy to have the Little Duke and the Dove in the Eagle’s Nest manipulated for schools. I should think there would be little to do to the Little Duke as it was written for children. I should have thought the Lances of Lynwood more suitable than the Dove as being on English history.

I know the Eversley country is full of beauty, I once drove through it. I believe there ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I shall be very glad that the Rubies of St Lo should be published as you propose, I receiving /4 per copy sold. Thanks for the two school Lances of Lynwood. I am only just come home from Devon or I should have written sooner

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan I shall be very happy to receive £50 for the American copyright of ‘A Long Vacation’

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan Of course it will not make much difference to me whether ‘the Long Vacation’ appears in April or September, so it had better be arranged as you have decided.

I should prefer the Royalty of /4 on the American Copyright to an immediate sum.

Might I ask, as I have been before encouraged to do, for a copy of Dean Church’s Life and Letters and also for Sonny Sahib

Yours truly C M Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan I delayed my answer till I had communicated with the Heathcote family - at whose request chiefly this history of Hursley has been undertaken.

I rather expected them to demur at making the book so expensive to buyers, and was thinking over the possibility of starting with it much abridged, leaving out the Plan and the Customs of Merdon Castle, the Birds Flowers, descriptions of parishes and Words - and most of the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Many thanks for your cheque which was an agreeable surprise to me. I hope the experiment of cheapness will be successful.

The great day at Hursley is to be the 24th October so if we could have a few of the presentation copies of John Keble’s parishes, it would be a great boon

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear C C It was for Monthly Packet articles that I extracted the payment, and the stock of the books that were my personal property were handed over to Macmillan. This offer from the family must be for the actual sales that had taken place since there was an account; but these agents did not try to explain it, so I can only ‘take the goods the gods provide me’ if they do for ... continue reading

My dear C C I confess that though I mourn over the Manes of the M P I am personally a little relieved, for I was considering what I could honestly personally undertake or allow my name to be used for, in relation first to Truth, secondly in public spirit to the Church and girlhood, and thirdly in justice to kind helpers and endeavours for a fresh start. Helen has been reading the early volumes ... continue reading

My dear C C Do you know that Innes’s stock has been taken by Ward & Lock? I heard it second hand from a lady who has been enquiring after her goods. I suppose you had the letter asking creditors to accept 5 per cent. I asked what was become of the remains of what was half mine and half theirs and was told that Tanner did not know. I think we ... continue reading