Charlotte Mary Yonge may be "placed" in literary history as the leading novelist of that Anglo-Catholic revival known as Tractarianism, or the Oxford Movement; but this classification cannot explain why her domestic novels have always been enjoyed by many readers to whom her religious views are a matter of indifference or even hostility. Firmly opposed to crudely didactic fiction--especially for children--she had the ability to extract dramatic tension from almost any family situation and relationship and to develop it with delicate moral and psychological notation. In her own day her domestic novels were admired by Henry James, Tennyson, and a wide public of discriminating reviewers and readers. In the twentieth century her enormous output of over 200 books--historical novels; histories; biographies; children's stories; tales of village life; and volumes on religion, geography, and names--has tended to be held against her. While there is much of interest throughout her writings...