My dear Miss Smith,

I should be very sorry to let the tardiness of the Monthly Packet stand in the way of your Two Beauties so I hope you will offer them elsewhere, and find them successful. There is such a quiet prettiness about them that I am sure they ought to do. And I always have a sense of guiltiness is keeping a thing so long by me, so that I shall be quite relieved ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I am glad I know you are at home that I may send you not lost but found. I have, as you desired me, taken great liberties with the correction. I think that what I have chiefly to observe is that you have here and there made it obscure by elliptical writing, and that you must beware of now which comes very often over, and I used, by my home critic, to ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler

I am ashamed not to have answered you sooner, but alas it is too late for May or June either so long beforehand does the Packet make itself up. If you had put me in mind of it in February, I could have provided, now I fear we must wait till cuckoo time next year, and pray let me have the papers so early in the spring as to be able to ... continue reading

My dear Sir, I have authorized M. Tauchnitz to republish “The Little Duke,” and Mr Sydney Williams tells me that he is about to apply to you for a cast of the frontispiece - I am afraid however that the lithographs can be no longer renewed, and I must reply to him that only the vignette of the little page is still to be had. I believe Mrs Blackburn had the stones broken up after the ... continue reading

I wish to consult you on a question of publishing. Rather more than a year ago, I consented at the request of Messrs Saunders and Otley to let my tale Hopes and Fears appear in their periodical the Constitutional Press, reserving to myself the copy right, and intimating to them my intention of putting the tale when completed into your hands for publication. I have just heard that the Magazine ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I did not write about the last part of the Websters as you kindly said you would take silence for an acknowledgement, until I had finished them, as I did last night, having been hindered by many interruptions.

We have been much interested in them, and think great part very good [sic] - Grace and Harold, and the early part of George and Grace especially, but somehow the parts do not perfectly ... continue reading

Madam, I have looked at and considered your version of the first Book of the Iliad, and it seems to me very prettily done, but I am afraid that in the present state of criticism especially through Mr Gladstone’s book, even Homer for children would require something more and deeper some separation of the Greek and Roman names of the deities, and view either mythical or historical, making it more of a study and not taking ... continue reading

My dear Miss Warren,

Many, many thanks for the extracts. I was waiting to write and thank you for them till a few pressing letters were put out of the way - indeed I dont [sic] believe I thanked you intelligently for the first set, I mean not after I had really studied it. Henerety I believe to be meant for Henrietta here who was generally so called. Another they have given up in despair and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I did not write yesterday because the parcel was not come, but it is here all safe this morning though I can only testify to the beautiful clear MS as yet. It was rather over weight, which perhaps was the reason of the delay. I think it is possible this may account for the lamented loss of the Wynnes, as the post will not convey things beyond a certain amount overweight. I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith,

I send the papers about Sandwell, and a back number of the M P, which please return. I have scarcely heard anything about the institution since I received this account from Miss Goodrich so my knowledge of it is two years old

yours sincerely

C M Yonge

I quite agree with you as to the promise of power in Aunt Judy’s doings . . . tell her that I shall like to have her intended story. I like to hear that you are about one of the Aunt Judy race too, but really between Aunt Judy herself and you as Aunt Judy, it is not easy to distinguish in one’s letters which one means, though there is no such difficulty in the ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I enclose a cheque for the amount of the Banks of the Thorne that has gone in this time, and I think has been very much liked.

I have had an offer of Mrs Sherwood’s Life from a person who can get at something about her privately so I thought you would not mind my accepting it, as a little beyond a published memoir is such a gain.

You see the Packet is flourishing ... continue reading

My dear Miss Peard,

You are a most comfortable correspondent and contributor, and it will be very pleasant to us to have the print of St. Sebastian which your friend has so kindly procured for us.

We shall be wandering for two or three months to come but it will be sure to reach me safely if sent either direct here, or to the care of Messrs Mozley 6 Paternoster Row. Which perhaps will be the best ... continue reading

My dear Fanny,

Your letter came to me safely yesterday, and very glad I am of the prospect it holds out. I wrote to Mr Raikes at once letting him [know] that it was just what I should like, but that he had better send it to me when I get home which I do not think will be till the end of October. I find it so very difficult to get a MS read away ... continue reading

My dear Sir,

In what I said the other day, I did not at all mean that I did not wish that the passages of Scripture quoted in the Conversation you sent me should not be argued and explained as is there done. I only doubted whether the Conversation was the best means of doing it, as I have found a tendency among my readers to prefer an essay or a letter to a simply didactic ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith,

I think this story is one of the most complete you have yet done. Mr Franklyn’s self debates are excellent, and dear little Mary beautiful, the wicked part very touching By the by you should do something with the /Michaels mother. She must be mentioned somehow- on his return, or else have died. I think if she had, she would be a great riddance out of Victoria’s way, and besides ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

Here is a note for Mr Bourne that I hope may do good service. I am not inclined to augur ill from the selling off of Aggesden, for of course tales do cease to sell after a time, and Parker certainly has published three or four one volume ones since his son’s death, such as Baby Bianca, Martha Brown, or the Queen’s Maries.

I am glad you will kill Mrs Forrest, only recollect ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I am sorry my counsels only led to disappointment but I daresay it is wise in poor old Mr Parker to undertake as little as possible. I should think you were in good hands with Bell & Daldy. I know Mrs Gatty thinks them very liberal. In one case I knew where a lady wanted to publish a story rather longer than yours, they offered to take it if she would guarantee ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

Many thanks for the first sight of my dear friends the Franklyns how attractive Bell’s pretty paper makes them. I will take care they go safely tomorrow on their long voyage, but I am afraid it is quite too late for a notice of them in the forthcoming Packet I take shame to myself for not have remembered that Mutterchen was neuter in the time of the M S and now ... continue reading

Sir,

I am obliged for your letter of the 9th. The MS of the Clever Woman of the Family is not sufficiently forward for the calculations for printing to be made yet. I have however a tale called 'the Trial' which has been coming out in the Monthly Packet, where it will be completed in the early spring when I should wish to bring it out, but it ought to be uniform with the 'Daisy Chain' ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I hope you will forgive me for leaving out a few bits of the Thorne in order to squeeze the rest into this year. I enclose what was omitted in case you wish to restore it to the book as a whole though I think the present opinion is that the story wants abridging. I have put what is for the M P in one parcel, what is returned to you in ... continue reading

Dear Mr Wodehouse

I shall be delighted to see another story of Miss Gordon’s. I am in hopes that her icelandic one will appear in the Packet in February or March, and indeed I was thinking of writing to ask where she was that I might send her the proofs, it is indeed a long time since we have met, and as my brother and sister have gone out and left us their cavalry, we are ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Gatty, In haste, with all the proofs on my hands, and going out to tea - here are the sonnets - I left out the first as being holy day, rather than Sunday, and belonging to next year’s series

Please let them go straight to Mozley’s and I should be glad of more for February.

I hope you are not overwhelmed with M. Macé in his second volume, I am sure the work must be ... continue reading

Dear Sir,

I found the other day that Messrs Longman’s delay in transferring my books to you was rendering it difficult for the retail booksellers to procure them - I therefore wrote to them a day or two ago to urge on the completion of the arrangements and I hope you may soon be able to let me know that this has been done.

How soon do you think it would be advisable to begin printing the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan

Besides what I sent on Monday and the 63 pp I am sending by this days post, there are 380 pp of the Trial in type in the Monthly Packet, and in MS what I should think would make about 45 or 50 more.

I am writing to Mrs Blackburn about her drawings

Yours faithfully C. M. Yonge

My dear Miss Twining, I am sending off your acknowledgements today, but I am much afraid they will not be in time for the next packet, if not they must appear in June, and I hope may by that time be added to as I am sure your paper must excite great interest

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

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 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 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 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, 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

My dear Miss Warren Thank you for the two little books - Yours I do like greatly, but I am afraid I can’t quite take to your friend’s. I think it is too puerile. Don’t you think it might have been made easy without saying that David’s face was nice or that they played prettily - and the children that have to be told that there were no guns, would be rather amazed at hearing that ... continue reading

My dear Mr Shipley, I am afraid that such an awful subject would not suit with anything so light as the Monthly Packet, and that I had therefore better return it which I will do the next time I send into Winchester, I send you the prospectus of a cheap missionary magazine, which Miss Mackenzie hopes to make very interesting

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

[In different handwriting on the second half of the sheet]

Dear Mr Bramley I am very ... continue reading

Pray tell Juliana that I have been told of a master at Rugby who was so fascinated with The Brownies that he ordered all the 30 old volumes of the magazine for his house!

My dear Mr Macmillan I am sorry that Dr Vaughan cannot undertake to give us his name. I wish indeed that the Archbishop of Dublin could, but if it is in vain to fly so high, what do you think of Dean Alford? I do not know him personally, nor would his name give the same complete confidence to the High Church as those before mentioned, but it might be the best attainable.

I had only thought ... continue reading

Madam, I am very sorry your last letter was so long unanswered from my having lost it. I fancy I must have torn it up, deceived by the general appearance being like that of the letters of a frequent correspondent. The Lutheran First Communion is at p. 544 of Vol 30—the Bells at Weisbaden at 441 of 29. The amount due for them is 30/ which I will send if you will send me your Christian ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Can you tell me how far back in time the reservation of the right of translation goes-? There is a pretty story of Paul Feval’s in the Feé des Grèves which my mother translated, and I want to have in the Monthly Packet. It was printed in 1853, and is out of print in France, and there is no notice of reservation of translation in the title page - however by way of ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Elder, In some inexplicable way your sonnet for the collect for the Annunciation has disappeared. Could you—if you have a copy—be so kind as to send it by the next post—direct to

Messrs. Mozley Friar’s Gate Derby,

as they are leaving a gap for it. How it was missed between us I cannot guess. I have all the others, quite safe up to June 29th. I hope you will excuse the blunder, and that it will ... continue reading

My dear Miss Jacob, I think the dream exceedingly beautiful, it went quite to my heart, and the vision of the mother saving the children was the pleasanter to meet with because I remember once talking it over with the dear Warden Barter, though whether I first heard it from him I cannot remember, at any rate it brought me his face and voice.

The only thing that I should have a shadow of doubt about is ... continue reading

My dear Miss Jacob, I have the Récit d’une Soeur, and if you like to read it, I could leave it, either at your house in the Close, at Jacob & Johnsons or any other convenient house of call at Winchester. It is a beautiful book - the family are so good and charming, though not equal in intellect or poetry to the Guérins. The great matter in reading it is not to judge it ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, I am in a little puzzle about this paper of yours. It ought to be in the August number, for by September, I suppose the exhibition will be over, and I am afraid there is hardly time to give it the touches without which I am afraid I cannot take it. It seems to me that there is too much of biography and not pictures enough. There is such a long piece ... continue reading

Dear Sir Do you know what it is to make the worst blunders in that which one knows so well as hardly to think real recollection worth while. This is the only way in which I can understand my own blunder about that hymn upon Sennacherib, which is not only home made - by my mother - but I have always heard every Sunday for more than twenty years.

I will send the July No of the ... continue reading

My dear Miss Poole, I shall be delighted to put in the history of poor Rosa’s dream, only I must let a few numbers go by first, or I shall by [sic] inundated with dreams. The gates of Paradise have set one lady dreaming already, and the Dreams of the Dead another, and I think I must let those wait a few months or we shall fall into a universal visionary mood—but I do like the ... continue reading

Dear Miss Manning, I am sorry not to have been able sooner to answer you and tell you how much I like your friend’s Stone cutter, whom I shall most gladly have in the Monthly Packet, though I am afraid it can hardly be before the end of the year, as though in the enlarged size of the Monthly Packet I can generally get a short self-contained story in every month, I am engaged a good ... continue reading

My dear Edith, I quite agree with your brother that your vision is very beautiful. If you were old enough to remember old Mrs Barter, you could hardly have helped putting in her vigil. When her son hoped she would have a good night, she answered ‘O yes, I shall be thinking of My Glorious Resurrection’. All yours are very touching. It would be odd if it came into the same No with a [[cmybook:81]story of ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Thank you much for your kind answer. The second set of cameos is nearly all written, but the Monthly Packet must have the first turn of them and that will take a good while - about a year at shortest.

I am afraid you think me very idle about the Worthies. The truth is that my Mother has grown so infirm of late that I have less time than usual, and that time I ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge, I was from home when your note about Index & Miss Sewell’s suggestion of a chronological table came to hand. But I have not been neglecting the suggestion. We are having a set of proofs made & shall put them into the hands of a competent person and submit the proofs to you.

With regard to announcing volume 3 [Next few lines illegible] the printers want something to do [illegible] and long and ... continue reading

My dear Mr Craik, I am dismayed at what I never found out till the Saturday Review called my attention to it - ie that the Cameo about the conquest of Wales was left out.

Such a Cameo there was written, it is at Vol IV p. 6 of the Monthly Packet, but it must have been neglected when I was collecting the Cameos and the printing was done so very slowly that I lost the connection, ... continue reading

My dear Edith I am so glad to have heard from you though I wish I could hear that Malvern was invigorating you, to say nothing of Dr Gully. Miss Dyson is the niece of my friend; I have only once seen her. She, ie Miss Dyson of Malvern is the daughter [of] old Mr Frank Dyson of Tidworth whose name I think you must know and do not take it as a bad omen, has ... continue reading

My dear Mary Thank you so much for your long letter and history of all your doings. I am sure if usefulness makes a happy life this ought to be one, and you must have much of kindness and of the sense of a living Church round you to fill you with energy. I do not know whether you have ever felt a sort of sense of the absence of the whole salt of life in ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan, Many thanks, it is very agreeable to get anything out of America. I have a story of the time of Henry V and James I of Scotland - about half out in the Monthly Packet, and all written. I was thinking of proposing it to you for Christmas when it will be finished in the Monthly Packet. Might not some arrangement be made about it with Scribner. I could either send them the ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Johns, Thank you for your kind invitation but I never know how to get out early enough for a one o’clock luncheon. Helen’s lessons last me till half past eleven, and if I do not work from that time till two, I can get nothing done, and as I am going from home the week after next, I am more hurried than is convenient, so that I cannot well spare the morning hours. ... continue reading

My dear Edith I should think that it was a case for Miss Twining’s Home at 21 New Ormond Street for Incurables, but I believe it is very difficult to get in, as she has only 27, and they are paid for to about half the amount of their cost, though I do not know what the weekly amount is. They also take Incurables at Clewer, for a servant of Mrs Keble’s is there. I think ... continue reading

My dear Arthur Authorities for the wars of the Roses are very scarce and bad. I believe Sharon Turner is the modern who has done them up best, and his notes guide to the places where he gets his authorities. I believe the best, next to the Paston letters are Polydore Vergil, and a certain Abbot /(I think) Welthamstead of St Albans who was a great Lancastrian till Queen Margaret let her wild Borderers ... continue reading

I do not go on the principle of no love at all, and letting nobody marry, but I do not think it will do to have it the whole subject and interest of the story.

My dear Mr. Butler I have two kind letters to thank you for, first about the T and secondly about the war - I wish the authority for the former was more direct and conclusive, it is so very beautiful.

The Monthly Packet of October will be quite German enough to please you, having the journal of a lady at Homburg and a translation by Miss Sewell of 'Der Wacht am Rhein', but I confess that I ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge Your letter has only reached me this morning. February will do very well for my Fairy tale to appear, as far as I am concerned—I only wanted to know its fate, & shall be glad to have it in the Monthly Packet rather than worked into one of my books.

I have directed Macmillan to send you my new book, which I hope will please you

yrs truly E. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen

Gentlemen Are you disposed to undertake the publication of four historical tales by Madame Guizot de Witt, translated from MSS which have never yet appeared in France or England?

The subjects are the Countess of Montfort’s defence of Brittany, the childhood of Blaise Pascal and his sister, and some scenes from Madame de Sevigné’s life, and to these I could add Francis Xavier in Japan, translated by myself, but which has appeared in the Monthly Packet ... continue reading

My dear Arthur Arianwen means silver lady. She was a Welsh saint and the name has never quite died out in Wales, so I suppose the girl has Welsh belongings of some sort. Arian rhod a silver bow is the rain bow, who scares away spirits of wrath there is a charming bit about her in old Davis’s Celtic researches which nobody believes now. Alas! Macmillan took advice about the School room magazine ... continue reading

My dear Miss Wordsworth, Sometimes one meets with a thing like an echo to one’s own thought (only that one’s thought did not set it going) and your Versailles poem strikes me just in that way. I saw the place on a bright August day in 1869, and it was quite an oppression to me. Those two Trianons both built to escape from the horrible dreary pomp when royalty had made it unbearable told ... continue reading

My dear Sir William, Many warm thanks for sending me Mr Austen Leigh’s kind comment on the Daisies. I believe I enjoyed them most, which is the best way to make a thing prosper. I am afraid the moral is not good but I have always found that what one likes best one does best. As to the crayfish, I did not know that they were so local, having always associated them with rivers and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Frere

You have chosen a very cold summer for your visit to England and I am afraid you must think you have come there in the winter by mistake. We have had some revolutions in the state of the Monthly Packet, a new partner at Mozley’s and a new printer, and my effort for some time past has been to get old material finished up. I have still so many verses on hand ... continue reading

My dear Augusta

I don’t know how it is but there never seems to be room in the Packet. I cannot get in my own Cameos, nor finish up the Three Brides as I meant to have done by two chapters at a time. When I began the York & L Rose I thought both it and Dt Cecil would end at Midsummer, and now I find that they will last on into next ... continue reading

My dear Miss Sewell,

There is only one chapter of Heartsease a conversation. It was privately printed twice, and now people are always asking for it, so I am going to put it into the June Monthly Packet though I do not think it is at all worth all the curiosity about it

The publisher sent me Miss Owen’s book just in time for me to answer a person who wrote to enquire whether the chapters were ... continue reading

My dear Miss Yonge,

At last I have found a few moments for my regular work. Between Archaeological Meetings and Servians I have had not time for any NB. As to Servians and Bulgarians, can't you give us a good word in your Monthly Packet? I am gathering pretty considerably; but we want help in every quarter, and we want Turks, Jews and such as abet them to be barred in every ... continue reading

My dear Miss Kekewich

I am afraid I do not know of any such governess myself at present. The only one I do know of as free, is too young to be sent to the sea with young girls, and she has not passed the examinations though I hope she will try

I think that you will see in the March Monthly Packet the address of a Miss Kennedy at Cambridge who might be good to ... continue reading

My dear Elizabeth

Gertrude has just been observing to me ‘You seem to have fallen in love with that story as you did with Miss Wordsworth’ which I suppose expresses a good deal of the way I have gone about in it. I do think it is a very fine and beautiful story, and I am not sure that there is not more substance in it than in anything the M P has had, ... continue reading

Dear Miss Palmer

I hope Lady Laura Hampton will not mind waiting a fortnight or so, for I am as you see in Devonshire and I can hardly manage to look at them till I come home, where they are waiting for me. I have however had a series of poems on the Collects in the Monthly Packet, and I hardly know how I could begin another.

I came here yesterday and found Mildred pretty well, but ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I wish I could promise a ready admittance to My English Servant into the Monthly Packet, but I am afraid that sending it to me would only involve an almost endless waiting. Some stories I have had by me for two years, and I think yours deserves a better fate, I wish the SPCK would take it, I can’t understand their principles, for I am sure there are two or three stories in ... continue reading

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

My dear Miss Smith

I am sorry to say your story, even with a little abridging, comes to 63 pp, and as that is nearly a quarter of the Christmas no. I had to give it up with another which I liked almost as well, but was 53 pp, so I am afraid I must keep it waiting for the end of Paul and Virginia and put it into the regular M P. I like your ... continue reading

My dear Miss Gatty,

The Signora Linda Villari wife to Professor Villari at Florence sent me this pretty little sketch of a real favourite bird. It is too youthful for the Packet, but I think you will like to open a connection with her, as she writes prettily and freshly. I enclose a card she sent with her address. She wrote a very pretty story once for the Packet called the Angel of Viareggio.

I hope you ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I am afraid your paper is too outspoken for the atmosphere of the Monthly Packet - which has to be guarded for young readers.

I should think there was every chance of the SPCK being glad to take your papers.

I do not know Cornwall at all, but is it not too strong to say that Adultery as such is not viewed as a sin - even by very neglected people

The other sin is - ... continue reading

Dear Miss Yonge,

I hope to send you in a day or two a small book I have written about travels in Iceland which were made by me chiefly on the track of various old Sagas, in which I was greatly interested. The book indeed treats of the country from the point of view of its literature. I need not say how pleased I should be if my old friend the ‘Monthly Packet’ liked it enough ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I with I could have made room for this very amusing account while it is fresh, but my October number is full, and I must give it up

yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

There is a new volume of Cameos just ready to come out, ending at Queen Elizabeth’s death. I suppose it must be called ‘Wars of the Reformation’ I do not like the term Wars of Religion.

I am also finishing off Stray Pearls, which will be completed in the Monthly Packet in June, in 32 or 33 chapters - so I suppose it may come out about that time.

It is a sort of continuation ... continue reading

My dear John

Thank you for your curious extract about names. I have one this morning from an Italian newspaper sent by Mrs Church, which beats everything. I translate it for your behalf- ‘The celebrated English Authoress of the Era di Ratcliffe is dead. Her name was Jong but in recognition of her talents, the Queen Victoria made her a Viscountess. She married the English ambassador at Constantinople but has continued ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Elgie

The weather is not kind, and it is unlucky, as the last days of the week are so occupied, and on Tuesday I have to be at the GFS working committee meeting I will try to come by your way, and bring Packet and other matters.

I wanted to tell you about poor Mrs Jewell. That miserable man cannot or will not get anything to do- and she is reduced to ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I am sorry to say your story did not come till the number had been chosen and sent to the printer. It is very pretty, but here and there a little long.

Yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Christabel

This is all the writing paper I have, being ‘en clôture’, with a pupil teacher, a candidate- and three senior scholars – whom I have to superintend, as Mr Brock is called off to preach at Andover. It must be rather a relief, for his son and heir squalls incessantly day and night, and Gabrielle resents being a dowager at less than 13 months. Well- I was not sure about ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith

I am terribly bound up with present matters of necessity but I will hunt up Delicia and see what I can do with her, though I know May, June & July are pretty full But I will put her in type, and then she will be sure of getting in soon (after Magazine calculation of soon)

yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Tyrwhitt

The copy right is yours. It always stays with authors in the Packet, so neither Mr Smith nor I can have any objection to Natural Beauty appearing in America

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Craik

You will think there is no end to me, but it may save more letters if you get this before seeing Mr Carr.

1st - Could some copies be put in boards for prizes for the Board Schools at Liverpool. I suppose they could tell how many, and others might like them

2d - . If I could have a list of convenient illustrations I could make them salient points

3d - As to length, ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik

I think I had better glance over the Shells.

I have begun upon the flowers but I find there must be a great revolution there, as it is no use in these days to teach the old Linnean system. I can manage by transposition, but it will take some time to set it in order, and I think it had better come in time for the spring, as it starts with the flowers of ... continue reading

Dear Mrs Molesworth

I think Felix can go into the December number as my Ulysses finishes in November, and there will be the space it leaves, before another begins I have tried to keep down the serials this year to leave more room for selfcontained articles but it is very difficult.

I will do my best to notice your books if I see them, but I cannot always mention a book as a matter of course because ... continue reading

Dear Mrs Drew,

I was out all yesterday and could not answer your kind letter, nor thank you for the excellent paper, which I have ventured to take to Mrs Sumner, who is really the parent of the Mother’s Union. I could not use it for the Monthly Packet as I am obliged scrupulously to keep that for young girls’ reading; but there is a yet undeveloped notion of starting some kind of paper, leaflet ... continue reading

My dear Christabel

I never did expect the debate in time for June, only we should have had a question. It may be as well to reserve those two letters in case of need for August. I fancied you knew that Annie Cazenove is the Muffin man I think she is one of the very best and most selfdevoted people in the world, but she had the disadvantage of being the only ... continue reading

My dear Nina

Gertrude desires me to say that we have never had an American edition of the Three Brides but she has taken measures for getting a second hand one and it will be sent to you. All my stories in the Monthly Packet do get published again Gertrude is tolerably well just now

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

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 Madam,

The copy right of Monthly packet stories remains with the author, so that you are free to republish King Pepito

Yours truly C.M. Yonge

My dear Miss Butler

I am afraid that there would not be good room for your paper till the end of the year—I mean Jany 1889. I agree with you that those old letters are full of deep interest, and such curiously unexpected traits come out in them.

You will see in a note in the next Monthly Packet a very odd thing just disinterred out of some papers of my great-great-great grandfather about a tradition ... continue reading

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,

People are continually writing in the Autumn to ask me to tell them of cheap easy dramas to be acted by their pupils - gentle or simple. I have just had to decline two such plays for the Packet because I do not think they suit in a magazine and I have no room but I do believe that to published them in a very cheap form at so much per dozen copies ... continue reading

Dear Madam

Thank you most heartily for sending me this most laborious and excellent piece of work. I hope to keep it with my volumes and make it useful

yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Mr Innes

I think you must have heard from Mrs Lennard by this time, as she mentioned, in a letter I had yesterday, having heard from you. I was out all day and could not write.

Miss Hugessen is ill and cannot do her paper this month but there are to be retrospective questions. I think the same notice will do. I will write the notices but I think I shall have to ask for an ... continue reading

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

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

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

Dear Madam

Lady Hunter’s letters are very amusing, and I am much obliged for them, but this kind of article does not well suit with a serial, and I must therefore return them

yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Driver I rather doubted about sending you Cyrus, because, as you will see, he does not stand alone, but is a chapter of general history and therefore is not very minute, nor has he been written more than once, so that you must excuse numerous deficiencies and please to let me have him again. To my shame be it spoken I have not read Clarendon; we ought to have read him aloud ... continue reading

You really must beg, borrow or steal something to help me. After this winter I shall get on better, but there are The Two Guardians and the Landmarks of History to finish before I can feel really at ease in giving my mind to this affair. I am rather afraid of spoiling the Landmarks by getting into a hurry. If you can send me something, I think we could meet the ... continue reading

No. III. is in clover. I have had something of some sort almost every day lately, and am not at all afraid of the 60 pages.

. . . Sir Guy Morville considers himself much honoured by your invitation, and as much as there is or will be by that time of him shall attend you. It will be a real kindness to take him out of my reach, for he is such ... continue reading

Madam, I am much obliged by your contribution to the Monthly Packet, and should be glad to see the other numbers. I must observe however that there are some expressions that had a childish tone that I would gladly see altered such as that the loss of Lucien’s parents was very sad for him, that Hilary wrote clever books, that his Psalms are the same as ours, that a priest is a clergyman &c. Alban Butler ... continue reading

Madam,

I return my best thanks for your pretty papers on Flowers. I should prefer giving them the title of “A Garland for the Year” instead of that of “Holy Flowers” as it is just possible that someone might take offence at the latter.

I should wish also to omit the last sentence of the 25th March, in which you say that the festival is observed with great solemnity in all Catholic countries, but in ours chiefly ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I am obliged by the kind manner in which you have received my suggestions, and I must pursue the Lotus controversy a little further with the assistance of Liddell and Scott’s dictionary.

Λωτος, it says, is the name of several plants often wrongly confounded. The Egyptian Lotus or Lily of the Nile, white or blue blossoms at the time of the overflowing of the Nile, and of the Ganges, and thus both in Egyptian and ... continue reading

Dear Madam My cousin answers me ‘the Lotus is not a flower, but a large tree, I do not remember the blossom, but the fruit is in large pods which the Zantiotes almost live on, we used to have them as vegetables at dinner but I always thought them very nasty. It was always called the locust tree, and it was disputed whether it was these Locusts or the insects that St John the Baptist used ... continue reading

Dear Madam, You are of course perfectly at liberty to reserve the copyright of the Garland for the Year. I should think it would form a very pretty little volume, and I hope, you will find, as I have done, that previous publication in a magazine is rather an advantage than otherwise in afterwards negociating for the publication of a work.

I am sorry not to be able to offer a larger rate of payment, but the ... continue reading

My dear Madam,

I have been waiting to thank you for your last additions to the August Garland till I could send you the proof. I was provoked last month to find that the ‘Penny Post’ had forestalled us with the Angel of death and Sleep in prose, not half so pretty as yours, but I suppose we ought to wait a little, as the two magazines have a good deal the same kind of circulation. ... continue reading

Dear Madam, It was Edward I who made the law for planting yew trees in Church yards, at least so I was told by a gentleman who never makes mistakes, and is deeply read in history. I have looked in vain in Evelyn’s silva and Loudon’s arboretum, but I think his information to be trusted. He says it had been done long before, but it was only in Edwd I’s reign that it became the subject ... continue reading

My dear Madam, The wreaths for these autumn months have been so much smaller that I am sorry to say that there is only 7/6 to send you for this quarter, and here are P.O. stamps to that amount. I have not yet heard what we shall be able to do next year. I think that 'the Lesser Holydays’ is the name that best approves itself to me, what do you think of it. I know ... continue reading

My dear Madam, My father, who procured the Post Office Order, has been at Winchester today and spoke to the post master who undertook to write to Bishop Auckland. I suppose he is an inattentive man, for he made a like mistake a year ago, in sending a wrong name. I had written yours on a piece of paper, so I thought he could not have managed to make another blunder. However I hope it will ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, I enclose the letter which I received from Mr Neale this morning. Perhaps it will be the best way for you to answer his question about the Latin yourself. His address is at Sackville College, East Grinstead, and I hope the researches in the book whose name I cannot read may prove successful. By the by, I find that the children here call the little blue prunella Lady’s slippers, whether from any connection ... continue reading

Dear Miss Roberts, Carlisle Cathedral is a very pretty sketch, and will be very acceptable to the Monthly Packet, I think however it will be better to keep it for next year perhaps, if we and the Packet proceed and prosper as hitherto, so that it may be the opening of a series which promises to be very useful and interesting, I will consult a very good archaeologist at Winchester about the rugged [sic] staff ornament ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler Thank you for your message. I do not think Rudolf requires to return to you for he stands so much alone that he only needs to be taken out.

Thanks too for the derivations, I shall trouble you with plenty more, I have no doubt, when I am at home with my list, and see my way out of the Latin derived names. I am to go home this afternoon after ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler Here is Aunt Louisa’s Berne chapter, which with its Ogre fountain will, I think, be considered very amusing. I hope you will be able to let me have her conclusion next week, as she will then finish with the volume, always satisfactory, as not leaving straggling chapters for another. However this may be asking much in this week, and when I suppose next month is already bringing you preparations and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler Many thanks for Basle, which will do very well. I am only sorry it had to be finished at an inconvenient time. And many thanks for Aunt Louisa altogether. She has been a very pretty pleasant portion of the Monthly Packet. I am sorry all the pages in the Packet were settled so that I could not get in even a verse of Gertrude, one of the people I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Millington This is a very amusing chapter, and I am glad to hear that Blue Mantle directed you to the right quarter for the next subject to be entered into heraldry. It seems to be an inexhaustible fund of curious information. I am overhurried today so pray excuse my blundering

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Mrs Blackburn, Herewith is a ‘Heartsease’ which I don’t expect you to like much except one character in it. I wonder if I judge rightly which of them you will tolerate, not that I shall tell you beforehand.

The time for the Little Duke’s second edition is come, so would you be so kind as to give directions to have another 2000 plates struck off. It is to be a cheaper affair this ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler ‘Likes and Dislikes’ are beginning at last you see, and here is the first chapter of them, looking very inviting.

We have had great enjoyment in a visit from your cousin Elizabeth, I only wish her back was stronger. Are you meditating any travels this summer, the Packet wonders in rather an interested mood. By the by, if you have any idea, I should be glad to know what sort ... continue reading

Madam I shall be very happy to avail myself of your pretty and pathetic tale of Lucy and Christian Wainwright for the Monthly Packet as soon as I can find space for its appearance, but I fear this may not be immediately as I should be sorry to break up the story into several numbers as the effect would be injured.

My rate of payment is 1/6 per printed page, and on putting this into type I ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler Many thanks for Chapter XV which is very lively and promising, and in itself is all that the Packet could wish, though of course I know it is but a single brick of the house which you have not yet built. It amused us exceedingly, and your writing is so easy to read that it is as pleasant as having a chapter of some printed book sent to us. Shall ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of writing to tell you how much your Thorns and Roses have already elicited of admiration. One of my best contributors (the School Sketches) has written this morning ‘you must let me say how much charmed I & all here are with the beautiful tale, Thorns &c Is it a secret absolutely whose authorship it is, or is it permissible to ask whether ... continue reading

My dear Madam When I wrote my first letter, I must have been under some hallucination that 52 shillings was £2 2. instead of £2.12. but I am glad the mistake was there instead of in the cheque. Your pretty Household Record came safely this morning, and I have read nearly to the end with much pleasure. I think I like it better than Wishop though not quite so well as the [[otherbook:253]Thorns and ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler I enclose with the Packet’s warm thanks the pay for Likes & Dislikes. I am so glad to think of the continuation for I think the notion of setting Emily to tame young ladies running to seed an excellent one.

Miss Sturges Bourne has just been conducting a sick cousin to Wiesbaden, and thinking with much diversion of Helen. She was near going to Marienbad itself which would have been amusing. ... continue reading

Madam, I am not aware whether Mr Mozley acknowledged the receipt of your friend's kind subscription towards the peal of bells at Auckland, New Zealand, and I therefore gladly express my thanks for the kindness The letter printed in the Monthly Packet was from Mrs Selwyn herself, and it is the very earnest wish of her friends in England to be able to send out to her that of which she has so well expressed ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler, Two lines to say that here I am at home, & shall be delighted to have Likes & Dislikes if they are ready. I go to Dogd on Monday week, but if I could have them in the interval, I should be glad. But I am afraid it is of no use to try for two chapters in one number I am engaged to so much, I have been reading Peothès ... continue reading

My dear Miss Butler, I certainly do like the Likes and Dislikes so much that I consider my self selfdenying in what I am going to say, and you will consider me servile, but I really believe that the Packet must steer clear of Puseyite name and discussion, and do what it does silently. So I suspect, with all thanks, that it will be wiser for Emily to stand alone, and yet I am sorry ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith I should have been glad to accept your ‘Manchester Visit’, but it has been forestalled as you will see on the first of August.

I have put out your princesses for October but I do not feel sure how the space will be

yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Miss Roberts, I am very sorry for my very stupid omission. I fancied that I had sent the money before for Ely, but I see it was not so, and I am much obliged to you for reminding me. These stamps should have come before but that our village post office requires a day’s notice when it is called upon for so large a supply.

I hope Lincoln at least will come in your ... continue reading

Dear Madam, I am much obliged for your offer of sending an account of the Queen’s visit to Cherbourg for the Monthly Packet, but I am afraid that the pages are already so fully engaged that it could hardly be inserted while it still retained the fresh interest which an article on such a subject requires. It could certainly not appear in September, nor unless very short in October, and after that the time for it ... continue reading

Dear Sir, I hope I am not taking a great liberty in addressing you, but I am doing so in the hope that you will excuse me in the circumstances.

These will be best explained if you would glance at the paper entitled ‘The Little Patient’ in the October number of the Monthly Packet

The little girl there faithfully described is again in the hospital for Children with another attack of disease of the heart, now ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith, I meant to have written to you on Saturday, but was hindered. On the whole I think I should say that your case was more disappointing and vexatious than anything else, and that Mr Mozley though his conduct is decidedly provoking did not exactly deserve such strong censure.

You see his view of the case is that if a book do not answer it is no particular pleasure to anyone, ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith The end of Aggesden does not at all disappoint me, I think Frank's gradual self conquest beautifully done, and John not at all less charming than at first. Mary is a very good lesson altogether, and very nicely done. And now for the subject of those two troublesome verbs to lie and to lay. I observe you say 'he lay down his head' and 'I must lay down all ... continue reading

My dear Miss Smith Parker has sent me the two pretty volumes of Aggesden, and very nice they look in print. I hope they will succeed for it is a very pretty story, and I think all it wants is more attention on your part to composition as a study. I do think, if you will allow me to say so, that to make your pretty narratives take thoroughly you should go carefully through ... continue reading

My dear Miss Roberts, It is indeed a long time since we have had any communication, though I have been intending to write to you for more weeks past than I like to count - ever since I think, I sent Lincoln Cathedral to be put in type! Then I put it off from day to day, meaning to send you the proof, but at last the article was put in without sufficient notice for me ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes I have the Unfashionable Concert somewhere it is one of those things that if they cannot be put in at once, get set aside for fresher papers of the charity kind I can’t make any promises about putting it in so I think I had better return it. I hoped to have found it this evening , but a visitor, and twilight prevented me. I have grown more wary at last about ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes, I hope there are still some Castle builders left for a lady in Portugal wrote a few days ago to ask me if it was still to be had, and I answered that it was. I suppose the Modern Landmarks are put out by later books.

I am concerned about a long series of scientific papers on the physical structure of the Earth. I accepted them some time ago from Miss Gaye and spoke ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes I am very sorry to see Miss Cheape’s proof did not reach her. You told me about a month ago that she had sent a fresh address but as I had sent her the proof of Mr Valentine full a month before - (or rather I knew it had been sent) I did not suppose it applied People never forward proofs, they always take them for advertisements.

By the by today’s ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes, I have disposed of Mr Hutchinson’s Stars except for this one chapter. I found when I wrote to him that he had not meant to contribute a regular course but miscellaneous papers now and then. I want however to get the Engineering recollections in America into this volume. They are 7 but short, very entertaining and one may be doubled. The story is short too. I have not got Miss Sewell yet, but ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik I have just finished a story called ‘Two Penniless Princesses’ about the two daughters of James I of Scotland who went to visit their sister, the wife of the future Louis XI, and found her just dead. It is in 12 chapters, each taking from 12 to 16 pp of the Monthly Packet, where half has appeared. It is to be finished there in December. Is it well to take any steps ... continue reading

My dear Florence I am very glad to hear of you again, and I hope the touch of frost will not be felt at Bournemouth; it has spared all our flowers as yet. I waited to write because Christabel was coming to make up our plans for the new volume. We will try to put in 'Purification' poem for February, but I am afraid poems do not get much payment. I wish ... continue reading

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, We shall have a good Christmas Number. All I have is excellent, and would nearly suffice

But will you consider whether it would not be better to change the printer of the Packet - Clowes has never been attentive since it was transferred to them. You know I have made continual complaints of inattention to directions, and Miss Coleridge says the same. Promises of amendment have been made, but without effect, and since the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes, I give my consent to the increase of your commission from 10 per cent to 12½ per cent.

We must sacrifice Gretchen and Archaeological Moss to Sister Florence who is more worthy. We cannot give up Rowling Manor-

Miss Coleridge did correct that tessellated mask - and you see she has marked on this revise that one of her other corrections this time was not attended to! I believe the defect must be that Clowes ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes, Votes coming straight to me, and votes going first to Miss Coleridge made a certain amount of confusion - and four for Rowling Manor dated Jany 30th, came in just at the end and carried it up to 14 votes while L’Epine Noble has twelve --- So I suppose it must be the prize one, though my own judgment would not have gone that way.

Thank you about the stamps - ... continue reading

My dear C C You may as well see this remonstrance of one of the old fashioned goody souls Mrs Crocker her name seems to be. She goes on afterwards about ‘Amethyst’— and I won’t send that, for it is all misunderstanding. I wrote a defence of Cherry and Maisie saying that she was in a process of growth, and I also explained the scope of Amethyst and that you are not a dangerous person, ... continue reading

Dear Mr Adams I think such papers as you kindly propose would be very valuable but my colleague, Miss Christabel Coleridge must be consulted, and likewise the publisher Mr Arthur D Innes, 31 Bedford St Strand

I think as you are in London it might simplify matters if you would call on him, as he would tell you about length of papers and terms and I believe we would find the papers very interesting

Miss Coleridge lives at ... continue reading

Dear Mr Innes Thank you for your kind letter, I suppose there will always be rubs of opinion when three people representing different generations of thought work together if in general principle they accord; and I know I am apt to despise popularity more than perhaps is fair in fellow workers to whom it is more important

As long as there is nothing irreverent tending to ‘Higher Criticism[‘] or to trenching on delicacy I am ... continue reading

My dear Miss Acland I am sending Pompei (it does not look natural) to Christabel Coleridge at Cheyne, Torquay, and it will be more convenient for her to let you know about it, as I am not the sole dictator of Packet now, but one of a triumvirate - being really, I suppose, rather dropped behind the present world.

I fear that any how the diagrams cannot be brought in, but that the publisher must decide, and ... continue reading

Dear Mr Craik I send herewith the story of ‘The Strolling Players’ - from the Monthly Packet. The joint production of Miss C R Coleridge and me. It joins to the Beechcroft series. If you could tell us what the royalty would be the division would be easier

Yours truly C M Yonge

I suppose Mrs Gordon has called about the Chicago books

Dear Mr Craik In a day or two you will receive from the National Society a story of mine called Grisly Grisell. It was written for them, but has turned out too historical for their purpose, and as a tale was wanted to be coupled with ‘The Rubies of St Lo’ I think it will serve the purpose. Mr George Macmillan knows all about the Rubies, which are in the Christmas number of the Monthly Packet.

Grisly ... continue reading

My dear Lady Frederick I am afraid I cannot give you more than a week, and that the 6th must be the last possible day. I believe I am going to look over the MSS. with Mrs. Sumner and send them off on the 1st, but we can add your report at the end. I hope you are really recovered from the influenza. People are having it at Winchester, but rather slightly.

I always ... continue reading

My dear Mary I send you the Melanesian paper; would you do as the Bishop asks, and send him your address and two stamps, and so get the paper regularly sent to you? Partridge sends me a terrible number, and now they are not to be gratis to subscribers. We have told them to send in their names to Bishop Selwyn; it is getting rid of a good deal of bother.

Moreover the [[other:52]Monthly ... continue reading

Dear Mrs Ritchie How kind in you to write me such a pleasant letter. I like to know that the companions of my life have been beloved by other people. I had actually begun for my own pleasure another link in the Daisy Chain for the Monthly Packet but it was decided that it would weary the public.

I am much enjoying your recollections. I hope you have a great many more still to come.

I was sorry ... continue reading

My dear Arthur Do you think that Cassell would like for one of his Magazines a sort of abridgement of Madame Cornélis de Witt’s diary of the Franco German siege of Paris, called Six mois de la Guerre It is a little book and my account of it would only take 8 or 10 pp of the Monthly Packet size It is nearly finished and will be ready to send away in a ... continue reading

Dear Madam I feel for your disappointment, and I like the feeling in your story but I cannot help you as my connection with the Monthly Packet was dissolved two years ago. I think your story is one that 20 or 30 years ago would have been liked, but taste has drifted into other directions not always so wholesome and that is probably the reason of the rejection

Yours truly C M Yonge

Your chance for Gonsalvo would be ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I have a story within three or four short chapters of completion, which I should like to mention in case it should come within the scope of any autumn arrangements.

I think the title might be ‘A Release’. It is founded on a story that Guizot once told me that Mongolfier, the aëronaut gained the affections of a noble young lady, whose parents forced her to become a nun. She appealed to the ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan I hope to send all but the three or four concluding chapters of my story, A Release or Caroline’s French Kindred tomorrow

I should very much like them to appear in St Nicholas, but the difficulty is that the really first part is in the Christmas Number of the Monthly Packet for 1893, and if this story appeared separately, I must rewrite the mise en scene, as I suppose the republication of Caroline’s ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan Some years ago Mr Craik wrote to me that the sale of the Cameos of English History had so fallen off that it was not worth while to give me £100 for the copyright of the volume after it had appeared in the Monthly Packet, and I therefore discontinued thinking of the separate publication. I think the volumes ended with the Restoration

Since that, and especially lately, so many people have asked for ... continue reading

Dear Sir In answer to your enquiries I beg to state that I believe my first publication was about the year 1846. I edited the Monthly Packet from its commencement in 1851 till 1893. I have never resided anywhere but in this village

I remain &c C M Yonge

Dear Sir I have been so much interested by the book you have kindly sent me, in common with rest of the Author’s Society and, having had a little correspondence with you many years ago, when you were editing the English Plutarch, I venture to write, thinking you may care to hear some experiences of a long life of writing, not from necessity but because I had something to say.

The passion for telling a story developed ... continue reading

My dear Mary I remember Charles Archer at Winchester and he once or twice called on me. Harward and Fulbert must be nearly the only ones left except Mrs Tolcher. I think Fulbert was a little while at Winchester. I sent you my idea of the insulted sufferer on a card yesterday I thought at first of Zechariah the son of Jehoiader, but that did not quite to suit and I do ... continue reading

My dear Lottie I put off writing till the 19th was over, for it really was a very interesting day, though I little knew beforehand all they were going to make of it. About £1800 was collected for the scholarship, and this was presented, with a beautifully illuminated address, by the Bishop in the High School, making a wonderful speech about having read the Little Duke when he was a small boy, and all that ... continue reading

My dear C C If I were to be dissected while I am alive, I think you would do it tenderly, but indeed I have always shrunk from seeing the lives of living people and my whole old fashioned nature revolts at the idea partly personally, and partly because I know how those who are gone would feel about it, so indeed I do not think it is possible to my feelings and I hope ... continue reading

My dear C C I am glad there are some signs of life or of decay more properly of poor A D I- ! I do think there are more and more signs that a 6d phoenix would be welcomed.

I find the booksellers make all sorts of excuses for not having got it – The Authors Soc want to see my agreement before advising me. I could not find it easily before I ... continue reading

My dear C C I am sure unless we could get an amount of subscribers enough to start a new Church Packet with security, it would be vain. Could we find out? Otherwise Sir W Besant is right, and we must acquiesce. I would make Duck’s Eggs a fresh start for it is needed, but I think it is not hopeful, sorry as I am, especially that Church should be a ... continue reading

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 am doing my best to write to Macmillan I think it is our only hope and rather a forlorn one- and explaining some of its history and scope hoping not to say too much or too little, nor to shew personal feeling

But I am sure it is a thing to be considered how to have a high class magazine for young persons, as I have been telling him and ... continue reading

My dear C C It is a cruel stroke to lose Lanty at the same time as M P You must feel desolate like Othello. Aimée Leroy has an idea, and may write to you about it, anent M P She says she has seen A D I’s business advertised to be sold. I have not, but I think my notice was sent in time. He has taken no notice, ... 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

Dear Mrs Lennard I did not write because I knew of no one who would respond to your plan, Are you going back to your old quarters?

I do not know Mr Arnold’s address. My nephew saw him at Lowestoft, where he was going to open an hotel! He has married a cousin of his wife’s

Miss Finlaison is at Preston for her holidays with her nieces, the Jenners, whose mother died this spring. They are in the ... continue reading

Dear Bath Brick

I cannot tell how space may stand at the make up of the number but if I can I will put in your appeal

yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Miss Yonge,

I leave my wife to answer the part of your letter which concerns her.

Yes: I had read your memoirs of Madame Lamourous; and our Sisters have just been reading it at meal time in the Refectory. But I am bound to tell you that I asked our Mother to mark out other observations of yours about the faith &c of the subject of your memoirs: which, to tell you the truth, I ... continue reading

Dear Madam

I am afraid these papers will not quite suit the Packet.

Would not Friendly Leaves be a good field for them

yours truly C M Yonge

The folk here, are quite on my side about ‘Debonnaire.’ In the first place, the King was so called as synonymous with Pious, according to Sismondi, and the proper original meaning of this word seems to have been ‘gracious,’ in which sense it is constantly applied to the best of the knights. Modern French has debased it, and given it of late the sense of weakness.... In English it decidedly means ... continue reading

Dear Miss Phillpotts, It seems hardly fair to have kept your paper several days, when the Monthly Packet is obliged to 'draw a line' against the numerous Missionary Papers it might have, but I wanted to show it to Miss Crawley - who you know, as well as Miss Morshead was one of the first Sisters.

She begged to keep a copy of it, and I think it would be most advisable to publish it. I was ... continue reading

Dear Miss Routledge

King Charles will come - if the Cameos and their author and the Monthly packet survive so long - in his due season - which cannot well be anticipated. But I am afraid a defence out of the Monthly Packet would not satisfy his enemies. Would it not be better to go to the fountain head? Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion is not a book hard to get at.

Or Guizot’s [[otherbook:1100]history of ... continue reading

My dear Madam,

I wish I could give you a more agreeable answer, but I am afraid that there is no space available in the Monthly Packet for your contributions which could hardly find admittance soon enough to answer to your present wishes

I am afraid too that I have too many sketches of travels already on my hands

Yours truly C M Yonge

Madam I was in hopes of being able to tell you of such a training ship as you desire, knowing that there was one under the management in part of a Mr Chambers, an excellent Churchman but I find that is a Reformatory Ship and that I suppose would hardly be what you wish, but if you would like further enquiries to be made, I could procure Mr Chambers address.

Yours truly C M Yonge (Ed M P)

My dear Mrs Gatty This fairy tale strikes me as one of the very prettiest I have seen, but it is too long for the Packet and besides ought to be illustrated. So I send it to you, hoping you will have room for it. I am a little disturbed by Venus shining all night but I suppose Fairy land could be no where else It is a most quaint and dainty fancy that does those ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Baker Here is your New Zealand paper. I am very sorry I have not been able to use it in the Monthly Packet, but I get more and more in arrears of MS, and am shocked at the way thinks [sic] lie by

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

Dear Madam

I am sorry I mistook but indeed I would not think of your copying out the index for me, as I really know pretty well by long use where to find anything that I want so that I lose no time over it.

I should be very sorry to give you all the trouble.

Yours truly, C M Yonge

Dear Sir I have consulting [sic] my colleague as to whether she remembers having your daughter's little book She does not remember it, and I believe I had it, but did not think it came within scope of the Monthly Packet, and we have very little room for notices of books, so as only to be able to put in what bears on our purpose

yours truly C M Yonge

My dear Miss Smith Articles addressed to the Ed of M P go to Miss Coleridge. She has been from home and things go to arrears, which she has hardly made up yet, but I will tell her to see about your paper.

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

My dear Miss Webster

I will try to bring the paper in when I can upon the Mission Parcel society, which no doubt is very useful. As to time I can only undertake to tell you when I am actually seeing it safe in type - for I am never certain of the space, as Debatable Ground, and the criticisms come in at the last moment and are of varying lengths, so that the shorter ... continue reading

Dear Miss Cox I cannot promise to vote for Anne Fay but she interests me much, as I have seen a good deal of the same kind of illness and I will see whether it is possible.

I well remember the days of the Cardioscope, which I think was one of the best ideas we ever had. I have now a fellow Editor who has taken the MSS especially of poetry. I think she must ... continue reading

Dear Madam If my coadjutors can make room your paper shall go in but there is a sad crowd of appeals

yours truly C M Yonge