Category:The Monthly Packet

Title(s)

The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church (1851-1899)

The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Members of the English Church (1851-1899)

Editor(s)

Charlotte M. Yonge (1851-1893)

Christabel R. Coleridge (1891-1899)

Arthur D. Innes (1894-1899)

Overview

The Monthly Packet began publication in 1851 and ceased publication in 1899. It was founded by members of the Oxford Movement to counter Anglo-Catholic extremism and was strongly influenced by its first editor, the novelist Charlotte M. Yonge. Yonge originally titled the work, The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church, and described her audience in the first editorial as “daughters of our own beloved Catholic church in England.”^[1] However, evidence suggests that readership eventually included adults and children from the upper and lower classes and as an effect, by July of 1866, the word "Younger" had been removed from the title.^[2] In its first years, subjects of interest in The Monthly Packet included history, education, sociology, missionary work, charity, and women’s work. Throughout its many years of publication, the journal adhered to Anglo-Catholic attitudes concerning religious and social values.^[3] For the general reader, The Monthly Packet offers a remarkable depiction of Victorian life with its changing prejudices, ideals, and attitudes from the perspective of a particular religious and social group.

For Further Reading

Coleridge, Christabel. "Charlotte Mary Yonge: Her Life and Letters." London: Macmillan, 1903. Print.

Dennis, Barbara. "Charlotte Yonge (1823-1901): Novelist of the Oxford Movement." Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1992. Print.

Moruzi, Kristine. “‘The Inferiority of Women’: Complicating Charlotte Yonge’s Perception of Girlhood in "The Monthly Packet."” In "Antifeminism and the Victorian Novel: Rereading Nineteenth-Century Women Writers." Ed. Tamara S. Wagner. Amherst, NT: Cambria, 2009. 57-75. Print.

--- “‘Never Read Anything That Can at All Unsettle Your Religious Faith’: Reading and Writing in "The Monthly Packet."” "Women’s Writing" 17.2 (2010 Aug): 288-304. Print.

Sturrock, June. “Establishing Identity: Editorial Correspondence from the Early Years of "The Monthly Packet."” "Victorian Periodicals Review" 39.3 (2006 Fall): 266-279. Print.

--- “Women, Work, and "The Monthly Packet", 1861-73.” "Nineteenth-Century Feminisms" 1 (1999 Fall-Winter): 64-80. Print.

Notes

1. ↑ Qtd. in “The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Younger Members of the English Church,” The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900, Series 2, Ed. John S. North, Waterloo, Ont: North Waterloo Academic Press, Web, 29 Oct. 2015. See also June Sturrock, “Establishing Identity: Editorial Correspondence from the Early Years of the Monthly Packet,” Victorian Periodicals Review 39.3 (2006): 266, Print.
2. ↑ “The Monthly Packet; of evening readings for younger members of the English church.” The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals, 1800-1900, Series 2, Ed. John S. North, Waterloo, Ont: North Waterloo Academic Press, Web, 29 Oct. 2015.
3. ↑ See June Sturrock, “Establishing Identity: Editorial Correspondence from the Early Years of "The Monthly Packet,"” "Victorian Periodicals Review" 39.3 (2006 Fall): 266-274. Print.

Submitted by: Young, Marion: section 1, Winter 2011

Submitted by: Leslee Thorne-Murphy