Charlotte Yonge is one of the most influential and important of Victorian women writers; but study of her work has been handicapped by a tendency to patronise both her and her writing, by the vast number of her publications and by a shortage of information about her professional career. Scholars have had to depend mainly on the work of her first biographer, a loyal disciple, a situation which has long been felt to be unsatisfactory. We hope that this edition of her correspondence will provide for the first time a substantial foundation of facts for the study of her fiction, her historical and educational writing and her journalism, and help to illuminate her biography and also her significance in the cultural and religious history of the Victorian age.


Featured Letters...

Elderfield Otterbourne Winchester
April 21st [1893]

Dear Mr Riley Have you Mr H H Gibbs’s name-? He is either at St Dunstans, Regents Park or at Aldenham Elstree I should think no one would be more earnest in the cause than he. I would also mention the publisher - A D Innes 31 Bedford Street Strand. Old Mr Alexander Macmillan I am sure would but I am not so sure of his sons though his partner Mr [[person:379]G ... continue reading

Elderfield, Otterbourne, Winchester.
25th February [1881]

My dear Mr Warburton

Our good Vicar sank suddenly last night, and died this morning.

Could you be so kind as to change the examination day-? Any day after next week, but it is so likely the funeral may be on Thursday and we all feel so full of consternation and grief that we do not know how to be ready, though we would be any time after the 4th

Yours sincerely C M Yonge

... continue reading
Feb 16th [1867?]

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

Innocents day [28 December 1872]
My dear Christabel Thanks for the grand faithful Gosling card, which is capital. These two Escorials are all that Goosedom has produced I never expected any thing of it at Christmas They both seem to be of the childish good kind. No, I have not seen Garnstone. Warne is not very liberal of his books. I don’t know what school children would do but for the happy dispensation that makes their own people prefer them to ... continue reading