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...
Messrs Harper
Gentlemen
I am much obliged for your remittance of £5 for Stray Pearls
Yours truly C M Yonge
... continue readingMy dear Selina
The Old Solitary Wasp has been excited to write out some recollections of this county in verse which may amuse some of the young Busy Bees.
I enclose my subscription, hoping it is right, but I am not sure
yours sincerely C M Yonge
... continue readingMy dear Charlotte, I found that when Helen had read the history of England she wanted something to give her a notion of the general keeping of the whole world so I set her on in the ancient Landmarks which she likes – to my surprise much better than English history. (She had begun with Little Arthur). But I thought her English history was too much in the rear so I made her read ... continue reading
My dear Mrs Harrison, I begin to fear that ‘Katharine Charlotte’’s photograph could not have taken effect, but you see I send her (or you) one of her godmother - It was done by one of my cousins, and if any of the kind friends at Whitburn care to have the like, we are selling them for a shilling apiece, our mercenary spirit being roused by the desire to build a school for the new Church ... continue reading