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, 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.
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
Textual Production Emma Jane Worboise
EJW also wrote novels which respond in similar manner to Charlotte Yonge 's Heartsease; or, The Brother's Wife and Elizabeth Sewell 's Amy Herbert. In each of these (titled respectively Hearts-ease in the Family...
Textual Features Ellen Wood
The plot and pacing of the novel differ markedly from East Lynne, and are more in the style of Charlotte Yonge than EW 's sensational contemporary Mary Elizabeth Braddon . While the theft of...
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...
Friends, Associates John Strange Winter
JSW had an extensive social circle in London—her biographer, Oliver Bainbridge , notes that a number of social claims were made upon her by reason of her popularity, and that these were always in advance...
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...
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...
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
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.
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
Intertextuality and Influence Lucy Walford
In Recollections of a Scottish Novelist, LW records her early love of literature. The books she read as a child, especially at the age of seven—including Charlotte Yonge 's The Little Duke, works...
Intertextuality and Influence Katharine Tynan
Despite the title, these poems do not present new themes, images, or structures. The most effective among them return to a theme always close to her heart: maternity. She celebrates female strength in two poems,...
Textual Production Frances Trollope
FT published a novel entitled The Life and Adventures of a Clever Woman, Illustrated with occasional extracts from her diary.
Charlotte Yonge had not yet published her novel The Clever Woman of the Family...
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...
Family and Intimate relationships Julia Stretton
Charlotte Yonge , writing of JS in Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign, 1897, observes that at this date an abnormally large family was no misfortune to themselves or their parents.
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett.
204
Their house...
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.
207
wrote the Charlotte Yonge in her memoir of JS .
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett.
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.

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.

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.

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

Women writers item

5 February 1836

The children's writerDorothy 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.

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 comedicnovel entitled The Carbridges.

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.

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

Writing climate item

June 1899

The EvangelicalmagazineThe Monthly Packet ceased publication, nine years after its original editor, Charlotte Yonge , had resigned from it.

Texts

Yonge, Charlotte. A Book of Golden Deeds. Macmillan, 1864.
Yonge, Charlotte, editor. A Storehouse of Stories. Macmillan, 1872.
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.
Yonge, Charlotte. Hannah More. W. H. Allen, 1888.
Yonge, Charlotte. Heartsease. John Parker, 1854.
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.
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.
Yonge, Charlotte. Magnum Bonum. Macmillan, 1879.
Yonge, Charlotte. Modern Broods. Macmillan, 1900.
Yonge, Charlotte. New Ground: Kaffirland. Derby, 1868.
Yonge, Charlotte. Pioneers and Founders. Macmillan, 1871.