Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Charlotte Yonge
-
Standard Name: Yonge, Charlotte
Birth Name: Charlotte Mary Yonge
Pseudonym: Aunt Charlotte
CY
was a staggeringly prolific author. Her more than two hundred works include domestic and historical novels for both adults and children, biographies, history and language textbooks, religious manuals, and a fragment of autobiography. She became famous without adopting many of the habits of the Victorian professional author: she published anonymously and donated most of her earnings to charity. Though her most successful titles remained household names for generations, many others in the Macmillan Uniform Edition were quickly forgotten.
Delafield, E. M., and Georgina Battiscombe. “Introduction”. Charlotte Mary Yonge: The Story of an Uneventful Life, Constable and Company, 1943, pp. 9-15.
14
Her underlying purpose is always religious. Her biographer Georgina Battiscombe
writes that filial duty is her great theme, to which both love and common sense must be sacrificed.
Battiscombe, Georgina, and E. M. Delafield. Charlotte Mary Yonge: The Story of an Uneventful Life. Constable and Company, 1943.
74-5
She advises submission as a Christian duty and not as an exclusively gendered ideal. She deals also in religious scruples and struggles: confirmation (as the climax of an education in spiritual self-examination) is often an issue for her characters.
Elaine Hartnell
argues that the reception of RNC
's work was tied somewhat to its modes and places of publication, notably her serialisation in journals edited by Ellen Wood
, Charlotte Yonge
, and Annie S. Swan
Literary responses
George Eliot
Cross
, concerned to protect and dignify her, chose the more sententious passages and excluded the spontaneous, trivial, and humorous remarks
Eliot, George. “Preface”. The George Eliot Letters, edited by Gordon S. Haight, Yale University Press, 1954, p. 1: ix - lxxvii.
xiv
from her personal writings, and presented an icon of Victorian moral earnestness; many...
Literary responses
Rosa Nouchette Carey
During her lifetime there was no shortage, in reviews of her novels in the popular press, of such adjectives as fresh, charming, and pretty, handy for quoting in listings of her works...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Charles
Although she made little money, EC
made a name for herself with the Chronicles. The novel went through several editions, as well as being translated into many European languages, Arabic, and numerous Indian dialects...
Literary responses
Harriett Mozley
HM
's brother John Henry
(later famous as Cardinal Newman) said her first book had the fault of being too brilliant.
qtd. in
Tillotson, Kathleen et al. “Harriett Mozley”. Mid-Victorian Studies, Athlone Press, 1965, pp. 38-48.
38-9
It was read everywhere by both High and Low Church parties. Several...
Material Conditions of Writing
Anne Manning
According to the old Dictionary of National Biography, she wrote this at Norbury Priory near Mickleham. Charlotte Yonge
links it with the priory she mentions on Salisbury Plain.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder, 1908–2024, 22 vols. plus supplements.
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
212
A young aunt...
politics
John Strange Winter
JSW
's interest in animal welfare was linked to her passion for dress reform, notably her opposition to the use of birds in decoration or fashion (a letter she wrote to Charlotte Yonge
details how...
Author summary
Marghanita Laski
ML
, a cultural force in twentieth-century Britain, published six novels, four biographies (one on multiple subjects), an anti-nuclear play, a collection of children's stories, three quasi-scientific investigations into secular and religious experiences, and various...
Publishing
Frances Mary Peard
FMP
published under her initials her first book: The Wood-Cart: and Other Tales of the South of France, a collection of stories reprinted from The Magazine for the Young (which, like The Monthly Packet...
Publishing
Harriett Mozley
HM
contributed to The Magazine for the Young, sold for twopence, which was edited first by her sister-in-law Anne
and later by Charlotte Yonge
. Tillotson remarks that writing for children's periodicals absorbed most...
Publishing
Frances Mary Peard
FMP
's acquaintance with Charlotte Yonge
began in connection with her writing for Yonge's Monthly Paper of Sunday Teaching a paper on the Jewish Sects
Harris, Mary J. Y. Memoirs of Frances Mary Peard. W. H. Smith, 1930.
48
(Old Testament, no doubt), which Yonge intended to publish...
Publishing
Rosa Nouchette Carey
RNC
published in three volumes Heriot's Choice: a Tale, which had first appeared serially in the Monthly Packet (edited by Charlotte Yonge
), between 1877 and this year.
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
Hartnell, Elaine. Gender, Religion, and Domesticity in the Novels of Rosa Nouchette Carey. Ashgate, 2000.
20
Publishing
Elizabeth Sewell
ES
was a frequent contributor to Charlotte Yonge
's The Monthly Packet. She also published articles on the Anglican Church and female education, notably including The reign of pedantry in girls' schools in The...
Publishing
Annie Keary
AK
's contributions to The Monthly Packet, an evangelical periodical edited by Charlotte Yonge
, began not with a story but with chapters on early Norwegian history,
qtd. in
Keary, Eliza. Memoir of Annie Keary. Macmillan, 1882.
127
for which she gathered books and...
Publishing
Roma White
In 1891 she contributed as Blanche Oram to volume two of the new series of The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Members of the English Church (now a bi-annual publication), edited by Christabel Coleridge
