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...
My dear Frances We buried the poor old fellow with all honours. Charles wheeled down the barrow, I followed, and we put him where his predecessors are, coming on two of their coffins before we found the right place. Poor old fellow, he loved his own way, and it was well for all that he should not grown old.
... continue readingMy dear Miss Yonge, I have to thank you for your kindness in presenting me with a copy of your Life of Bishop Patteson which I assure you I regard as no ordinary favour; - with a still deeper feeling, however, for the book itself is a lasting benefit to the Christian world and I trust to the Heathendom yet to be reclaimed. He being dead still speaketh. Such an example will do ... continue reading
Dear Madam Judging from your former letter that you do not expect Mrs. Yonge to pay for the £1000 I think it will be best to have the policy transferred to you. For that purpose it will be necessary that Mrs. Yonge should sign the transfer. Will you kindly write to her & explain this & say that she may expect to hear from me. I have duly recd the cheque for £1.15. ... continue reading
My dear Miss Smith
Thank you for the end of your story which I like very much. Here and there you may have been a little discursive, and possibly abridgement may find out some bits. About the incongruity of wreaths with the feelings of the last generation I quite agree with you. We /elder ones felt it so with my dear old uncle who we knew held it as a frivolity, and ... continue reading