My dear Mrs Blackburn I have bought myself a Grimm, and studied all the Thumbs that have come in my way, and have come to the conclusion that the way to make him pretty will be after all as you suggested, to begin with King Arthur. The unmitigated nursery legend with all the swallowing and the tricks is not poetical, and must have been vulgarized. So I will take what of Round table stories will suit, ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn That you may see the earnest has begun I send you the beginning of Tom on inspection, but please let me have him again or I shall forget what articles of fairy furniture have been used up. I like the work very much, and where you see numbers put I mean to have notes, and quote my authorities, Drayton, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Geoffrey of Monmouth. In this way I think pretty bits ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn Many thanks for your photograph which I am very glad to possess, as it is pleasant to have more than a visionary notion what one is writing to.

I cannot find any authority for Tom Thumb’s father being a miller, in one of your books he is a ploughman in the other a woodman, and in Grimm a peasant, so as he seemed to be quite well to do, with a cow ... continue reading

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 Mrs Blackburn, We are rather in distress for the eight folds of paper, as the width of the back depends on them, and orders should be given to the binder, so if they have not set off would you have them sent to me at Deer Park, Honiton, whither it seems finally settled that we are to go on Monday. If you could also send me the impressions of the other illustrations we could ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, I condole with you on the loss of your chicken and hope the other will not follow it at the critical moment of putting out the wing feathers. I am afraid the Empress has no such good amusement, and probably the Imperial prince is much too grand a personage for her to be allowed to touch him. I never read anything more absurd than the account of his 144 garments of ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, The price of the binding was /6½ per volume, as that blue is an expensive cloth, and the binding of an illustrated book is always more expensive, because the plates have to be sewn in separately. I must say that I have a suspicion that you had divided the sum total by 1000 instead of 2150, for certainly 1/4 would have been almost enough to bind a quarto. The paper is included ... 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

My dear Miss Wilford

Yesterday was the Ampfield anniversary of the consecration of the Church and I took a grand holiday - including a walk from Ampfield to Hursley with Mr Keble, and so I could not write but we have read your Seven Campbells and like them very much. I suspect boys would believe in them more if John Lackland always went by his English name.

I do not think a Scottish minister stands on the ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, I fancy that you would find the Cloister & the Hearth answer for your reading to Mr Blackburn if you like a tissue of wonderful adventures which befal Erasmus’ father & mother, there are bits rather coarse and I find other people like it better than I did.

East Lynn is very clever a capital plot, and would carry on vehemently. Perhaps you have seen reviews of it - Grandmother’s Money - clever ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, I was very glad of a letter from you, it is so pleasant to keep up our intercourse that I am always wishing to invent some cause for writing. I wonder if I shall ever arrive at writing the Siege of Waspburg, it is a thing I cannot do till the spirit of wasps seizes me and I suppose it will do some time or other. Your birds must be delightful, except ... continue reading

Dear Sir,

My brother will call on you on Wednesday morning, the 2nd, unless he should hear from you to the contrary. His address is J.B. Yonge Esq

9 Montague Place

Bryanston Square.

I have just heard that there are 50 copies of the Lances of Lynwood ordered, and that there are none in stock.

I think a new edition should be put in hand at once, it is a childs book, with designs by Mrs Blackburn ... continue reading

Dear Mr Macmillan

Herewith I send enough of the Trial for the printer to proceed with at once. I have erased all the redundancies I could find, and I hope it may thus become less cumbrous - Unless there is some difficulty I suppose there is no need of sending me proofs. Mr Parker wrote to me himself to recommend Phelps who printed the History of Christian Names and as there were a good many letters ... 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

Dear Mr Macmillan,

I enclose what Mrs Blackburn says in answer to my question about the drawings for the Little Duke - Will you tell me what you think of the matter? I suppose she might improve some of the faces, but I think it is quite open to you to find some other designer. I shall send tomorrow another parcel of the Trial

Yours faithfully C.M. Yonge

Dear Mr Macmillan,

I am sorry to trouble you again, but will you kindly tell me how to answer the letter from Mrs Blackburn about the Illustrations to the Little Duke, which I sent about ten days ago - You see she says it must be settled quickly as she is going abroad

Yours faithfully ... 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

My dear Mrs Blackburn It was very pleasant to see your writing again after so many years! Our intercourse used to be in the early ages, though I have kept up hearing of you from Lady Blachford, whom I saw last summer settle again at Cornwood to the great joy of the inhabitants.

I am glad you are to bring out so many of your works. I hope that congregation of terns that I once saw in ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn, The book arrived by second post, just after my letter was gone -

I see some of my old friends and some new ones, and the wonderful and horrid young cuckoo, though poor little thing it is only its instinct of tidiness - no worse than killing rats! How curious it is that the American Cuckoo should be a decent domestic mother, while the cow bird acts her part.

You have not so ... continue reading

My dear Mrs Blackburn,

It is very pleasant to hear from you again! Someone ought to collect versions of Father Isams[?] and Sister Katieaia[?] (as she was in my time) Our school children have been seeing [sic] playing at them in Church. I should not have understood but my mother and her half sister had played at it in their childhood without understanding it. A few years ago one of my cousins saw another - a ... continue reading