Charlotte Yonge

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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.
Black and white reproduction of an albumen print of Charlotte Yonge's head by the Rev. Duke Yonge, 1858? The image is oval; the sitter is seen in profile facing left. She is wearing a small, light cap, a pale ribbon around her neck fastened with a brooch (perhaps a cameo), and embroidery around her collar. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Mary Wollstonecraft
This book (several times reprinted in England and America, but now rare) has often been omitted from lists of her works. Most of the illustrations, which were added in the second edition, 1791, are by...
Anthologization Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
Early in her career SSW also published instructional books for children (though the generic boundary between these and story-books is by no means clear; Lissa Paul calls these teaching narratives realistic fiction).
Paul, in...
Anthologization Sarah Fielding
She dedicated it to the court lady Anna Maria Poyntz . It may perhaps be the Book Upon Education
Sabor, Peter, and Sarah Fielding. “Introduction”. The Adventures of David Simple and Volume the Last, University Press of Kentucky, 1998, p. vii - xli.
xxxix
which SF was planning in October 1748, or that may have been something different that...
Anthologization Elizabeth Gunning
This was initially in two volumes. Before the end of the year she had added A Sequel to Family Stories, which repeats the rest of the original title, and adds five further tales. Charlotte Yonge
Cultural formation Cecil Frances Alexander
In 1848CFA met British novelist Charlotte Yonge and the leader of the Oxford Movement , John Keble .
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.
CFA 's husband believed that Keble endowed her with a sense of the magic, of the...
Cultural formation Anne Manning
She was born into a well-established English family; Charlotte Yonge says her father belonged to the higher professional class:
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
211
an uncle, cousin, and brother all distinguished themselves in legal fields.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
It is not...
Cultural formation Julia Stretton
She was born into the English middle class, and became a sincere and earnest Anglican . She grew up in an industrial, working-class area, in which her family was clearly marked out as superior to...
Cultural formation Frances Cornford
She was brought up an agnostic, and not christened until about 1894, by which time, under the influence of the Christian message delivered in works like Charlotte Yonge 's The Daisy Chain, she had...
Education Mary Louisa Molesworth
Educated privately at home, MLM could not remember a time before she could read, nor any time when reading stories was not my greatest delight.
qtd. in
Green, Roger Lancelyn. Mrs. Molesworth. Bodley Head, 1961.
21
She began formal learning with her mother. She read...
Education Anne Manning
AM was taught at home by both her mother and her father, with the help of masters for special accomplishments,
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
211
and for a short time by a governess. Charlotte Yonge , who wrote of...
Education Mary Wesley
Mary acquired various country skills, like milking (by hand), butter-making, and of course riding.
Wesley, Mary, and Kim Sayer. Part of the Scenery. Bantam, 2001.
19, 20
She was not expected, however, to need to acquire skills that were marketable. Initially she was educated by about...
Education Lucy Walford
Typically for her class, the young Lucy Colquhoun was placed in the care of a nurse, whom she referred to as Mistress Aitken. She was educated at home by two German governesses, Fräulein Emma Lindemann
Education Anne Ridler
Her education began with her mother and a governess. At six she began attending a class run by the sister of another Rugby master. Later came visits to a piano teacher, and at home a...
Education Elma Napier
In spite of the fact that her family did not value literature as much as games, and that her mother had specific ideas about what girls should read, EN devoured every book she could get...
Education Julia Stretton
Education was not the tyrannical care in those days that it is at present,
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
207
wrote the Charlotte Yonge in her memoir of JS .
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
207
Along with her sisters, Julia was taught at her...

Timeline

1765: The didactic History of Little Goody Two-Shoes...

Writing climate item

1765

The didactic History of Little Goody Two-Shoes was published by John Newbery: the most popular children's book of its period. It had fourteen reprints before 1814.
Hunt, Margaret R. The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680-1780. University of California Press, 1996.
75
Fergus, Jan. “The Gothic Moan”. Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) Conference, Quebec City, QC, 10 Oct. 1998.
Wilkes, Joanne. “’Without Impropriety’: Maria Jane Jewsbury on Jane Austen”. Persuasions, Vol.
13
, 1991, pp. 33-8.
15: 3, 25
Brownstein, Rachel M. “Review of Jane Austen by Deirdre LeFaye”. JASNA News: The Newsletter of the Jane Austen Society of North America, Vol.
15
, No. 3, 1999, p. 25.
25
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan, 1870–1872, 2 vols.
1: vi

14 September 1767: Midwife Elizabeth Brownrigg was hanged at...

Building item

14 September 1767

Midwife Elizabeth Brownrigg was hanged at Tyburn (in London near the present Marble Arch) for the murder of Mary Clifford , a workhouse apprentice.
Allott, Miriam, editor. The Brontës. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974.
300
English Short Title Catalogue. http://estc.bl.uk/.

1832: Joseph Henry Parker took over his uncle's...

Writing climate item

1832

Joseph Henry Parker took over his uncle's Oxford bookselling and publishing business; as J. H. Parker it soon became the foremost publisher of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement.
Rose, Jonathan, and Patricia J. Anderson, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 106. Gale Research, 1991.
106: 230

5 February 1836: The children's writer Dorothy Kilner died...

Women writers item

5 February 1836

The children's writer Dorothy Kilner died at Stratford near London; she and her sister-in-law, Mary Ann Kilner (1753-1831), published their anonymous, undated works through John Marshall from the 1770s.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan, 1870–1872, 2 vols.
1: vii-ix
Solo: Search Oxford University Libraries Online. 18 July 2011, http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=OXVU1&fromLogin=true&reset_config=true.
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 5 series.
58 (1784): 319
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By 7 November 1874: Mary Bramston (a friend of Charlotte Yonge...

Women writers item

By 7 November 1874

Mary Bramston (a friend of Charlotte Yonge and Christabel Coleridge ) published a comedic novel entitled The Carbridges.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
2454 (1874): 606

April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...

Writing climate item

April 1879

James Murray —editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.
Winchester, Simon. The Meaning of Everything. Oxford University Press, 2003.
93, 107, 109

June 1899: The Evangelical magazine The Monthly Packet...

Writing climate item

June 1899

The Evangelical magazine The Monthly Packet ceased publication, nine years after its original editor, Charlotte Yonge , had resigned from it.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford University Press, 1989.
443
OCLC WorldCat. 1992–1998, http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

Texts

Yonge, Charlotte. A Book of Golden Deeds. Macmillan, 1864.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan, 1872, 2 vols.
Yonge, Charlotte. Abbeychurch. James Burns, 1844.
Yonge, Charlotte. An Old Woman’s Outlook in a Hampshire Village. Macmillan, 1892.
Mozley, Anne, and Charlotte Yonge. “Appendix D: Clever Women”. The Clever Woman of the Family, edited by Clare Simmons and Clare Simmons, Broadview, 2001, pp. 591-8.
Yonge, Charlotte et al. Astray. Hatchards, 1886.
Yonge, Charlotte. Aunt Charlotte’s Stories of English History for the Little Ones. Marcus Ward, 1873.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. Biographies of Good Women. J. and C. Mozley, 1862.
Yonge, Charlotte. Countess Kate. J. and C. Mozley, 1862.
Yonge, Charlotte. Deacon’s Book of Dates. C. W. Deacon, 1888.
Yonge, Charlotte. Dynevor Terrace. John Parker, 1857, 2 vols.
Yonge, Charlotte. Hannah More. W. H. Allen, 1888.
Yonge, Charlotte. Heartsease. John Parker, 1854, 2 vols.
Yonge, Charlotte. Henrietta’s Wish. Joseph Masters, 1850.
Sewell, Elizabeth, and Charlotte Yonge. Historical Selections. Macmillan, 1868.
Yonge, Charlotte. History of Christian Names. Parker, Son, and Bourn, 1863.
Yonge, Charlotte. Hopes and Fears. John Parker, 1860, 2 vols.
Ewing, Juliana Horatia et al. “Introduction”. Victorian Tales for Girls, edited by Marghanita Laski, Pilot Press, 1947, pp. 7-12.
Yonge, Charlotte. “Introduction”. The Clever Woman of the Family, edited by Clare Simmons, Broadview Press, 2001, pp. 7-26.
Yonge, Charlotte. Kings of England. J. and C. Mozely, 1848.
Yonge, Charlotte. Life of John Coleridge Patteson. Macmillan, 1874, 2 vols.
Yonge, Charlotte. Magnum Bonum. Macmillan, 1879, 3 vols.
Yonge, Charlotte. Modern Broods. Macmillan, 1900.
Yonge, Charlotte. New Ground: Kaffirland. Derby, 1868.
Yonge, Charlotte. Pioneers and Founders. Macmillan, 1871.