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Countess Kate
This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. This text refers to the Bibliobazaar edition.
170 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1862
11 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Charlotte Mary Yonge
711 books73 followersCharlotte Mary Yonge was an English novelist, known for her huge output, now mostly out of print.
She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 160 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. Yonge was also a founder and editor for forty years of The Monthly Packet, a magazine (founded in 1851) with a varied readership, but targeted at British Anglican girls (in later years it was addressed to a somewhat wider readership).
Among the best known of her works are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. A Book of Golden Deeds is a collection of true stories of courage and self-sacrifice. She also wrote Cameos from English History, Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands and Hannah More. Her History of Christian Names was described as "the first serious attempt at tackling the subject" and as the standard work on names in the preface to the first edition of Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 1944.
Her personal example and influence on her god-daughter, Alice Mary Coleridge, played a formative role in Coleridge's zeal for women's education and thus, indirectly, led to the foundation of Abbots Bromley School for Girls.
After her death, her friend, assistant and collaborator, Christabel Coleridge, published the biographical Charlotte Mary Yonge: her Life and Letters (1903).
-Wikipedia
The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship, a website with lots of information.
See Charlotte's character page for books about her.
She began writing in 1848, and published during her long life about 160 works, chiefly novels. Her first commercial success, The Heir of Redclyffe (1853), provided the funding to enable the schooner Southern Cross to be put into service on behalf of George Selwyn. Similar charitable works were done with the profits from later novels. Yonge was also a founder and editor for forty years of The Monthly Packet, a magazine (founded in 1851) with a varied readership, but targeted at British Anglican girls (in later years it was addressed to a somewhat wider readership).
Among the best known of her works are The Heir of Redclyffe, Heartsease, and The Daisy Chain. A Book of Golden Deeds is a collection of true stories of courage and self-sacrifice. She also wrote Cameos from English History, Life of John Coleridge Patteson: Missionary Bishop of the Melanesian Islands and Hannah More. Her History of Christian Names was described as "the first serious attempt at tackling the subject" and as the standard work on names in the preface to the first edition of Withycombe's The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, 1944.
Her personal example and influence on her god-daughter, Alice Mary Coleridge, played a formative role in Coleridge's zeal for women's education and thus, indirectly, led to the foundation of Abbots Bromley School for Girls.
After her death, her friend, assistant and collaborator, Christabel Coleridge, published the biographical Charlotte Mary Yonge: her Life and Letters (1903).
-Wikipedia
The Charlotte Mary Yonge Fellowship, a website with lots of information.
See Charlotte's character page for books about her.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
November 27, 2023
I absolutely loved this, from start to finish. It does read more like a children’s book in many ways—the characters are vividly drawn but not as fleshed out and nuanced as they could be, and there’s a heavy dose of didacticism—but Kate is very nearly as endearing as Anne of Green Gables, and that’s saying something!! She gets into scrape after scrape, but each one can be seen to be forming and refining her character. It’s a wonderful story with a very touching conclusion. I thoroughly enjoyed it!
November 28, 2023
This book is something else! I so enjoyed my buddy read with Rainey, Amy, Angela, and Darryl. There are lots of funny moments in this a la Anne Shirley. Kate has a penchant for getting into scrapes (and she’s an orphan). At the same time, there is a moral weight to the story that is brilliantly explored in the two main characters, 11-year-old Kate and her middle-aged Aunt Barbara who becomes her guardian when Kate inherits the title of Lady Caergwent from her deceased uncle and cousin.
Aunt Barbara is a complex character. I consider Charlotte Yonge as an author who explores extensively what it means to be a dutiful person. Yonge does something so interesting with Aunt Barbara in exposing how she swings to both extremes in her perceived duty to Kate. Barbara both neglects her duty to Kate in various ways and exaggerates her duty to Kate (and to Kate’s position as a countess). Barbara has fixed ideas in her head and she is blind to her error until a redemptive scene towards the end of the novel when she realizes that her duty was really to love Kate…and that is the one duty that she purposefully turned from. CMY always helps me think of the duty v. desire construct in a new way. Our modern view of duty is that it’s a shackle that keeps us from doing what we want. In Aunt Barbara, we see that pursuing her real duty to love Kate would have led to freedom, freedom for Kate to be her unique self in the role God called her to and freedom for Aunt Barbara to let Kate’s well-being be in other hands than her own.
Kate also has her story of growth in the midst of her own strong personality and mishaps and sins and bad habits. I think Yonge finds a delicate balance with Kate that is not quite present with Aunt Barbara’s character until the very end. Perhaps because we see Barbara as the inflexible authoritarian figure as Kate does. With Kate, Yonge manages to show that her naughtiness and unhappiness at Bruton Street is a complex mixture of her high energy personality that has limited outlet, her child’s (limited) understanding, her bewilderment at being taken from the family she knows, her fallen nature and the sins of temper and pride that plague her, her unwillingness to learn from her mistakes/outbursts, and Aunt Barbara’s detrimental lack of understanding at what children need to thrive. (How’s that for a long sentence?) It’s really quite brilliant. I think the moral weight of the story builds gradually until Kate’s aunt and uncle return to England and bring an outsider’s view to the power struggle between Kate and her aunt. Like in an Austen novel, it’s only when the main characters’ eyes are opened to reality, that growth can happen.
Aunt Barbara is a complex character. I consider Charlotte Yonge as an author who explores extensively what it means to be a dutiful person. Yonge does something so interesting with Aunt Barbara in exposing how she swings to both extremes in her perceived duty to Kate. Barbara both neglects her duty to Kate in various ways and exaggerates her duty to Kate (and to Kate’s position as a countess). Barbara has fixed ideas in her head and she is blind to her error until a redemptive scene towards the end of the novel when she realizes that her duty was really to love Kate…and that is the one duty that she purposefully turned from. CMY always helps me think of the duty v. desire construct in a new way. Our modern view of duty is that it’s a shackle that keeps us from doing what we want. In Aunt Barbara, we see that pursuing her real duty to love Kate would have led to freedom, freedom for Kate to be her unique self in the role God called her to and freedom for Aunt Barbara to let Kate’s well-being be in other hands than her own.
Kate also has her story of growth in the midst of her own strong personality and mishaps and sins and bad habits. I think Yonge finds a delicate balance with Kate that is not quite present with Aunt Barbara’s character until the very end. Perhaps because we see Barbara as the inflexible authoritarian figure as Kate does. With Kate, Yonge manages to show that her naughtiness and unhappiness at Bruton Street is a complex mixture of her high energy personality that has limited outlet, her child’s (limited) understanding, her bewilderment at being taken from the family she knows, her fallen nature and the sins of temper and pride that plague her, her unwillingness to learn from her mistakes/outbursts, and Aunt Barbara’s detrimental lack of understanding at what children need to thrive. (How’s that for a long sentence?) It’s really quite brilliant. I think the moral weight of the story builds gradually until Kate’s aunt and uncle return to England and bring an outsider’s view to the power struggle between Kate and her aunt. Like in an Austen novel, it’s only when the main characters’ eyes are opened to reality, that growth can happen.
December 3, 2007
I'll admit that this book made me feel peevish and petulant. It may be a good thing to notice that you are petulant and self centered and possibly whiny, but it isn't particularly pleasant. Kate is an orphan who suddenly gets promoted to Countess. She gets moved to her old spinster aunts' house and commences to struggle for 7/8 of the book. She's heedless and apt to get in scrapes. The story is a fair telling, and neither Kate's Aunt Barbara nor Kate herself end up looking very good by the end of things. For a while I wasn't sure why I was reading this book, but I really needed to know how Kate snapped out of her selfish cycle and became pure hearted again. It took me two days to get to the part where she turns a corner, and (I will go ahead and spoil it so you don't have to read it, too) she finally gets religious. And she looks to the Psalms for comfort. And within a fortnight she's rewarded and her uncle and his wife come back from India, where they'd been stationed, and their only living son had just died, and so they were happy to adopt Kate and help her be very good for a very long time (I think for the rest of her life).
I liked it because though it was uncomfortable how petulant she was (petulant was really the perfect word for her), it reminded me that it's good to struggle with moral issues and remember that you aren't the center of the universe every once in a while. And I'll admit that I cried at the end when the aunt and uncle took Kate to live with them to help ease their bereavement, and Aunt Barbara realized that all this time she'd been holding a grudge against Kate's deceased father and though she's been fair with Kate, she'd never been affectionate. Boo hoo!
Funny to think that this woman Charlotte Mary Yonge wrote hundreds of books and then faded completely into oblivion. Though no one much likes reading uncomfortable stories, and religion is pretty much out of vogue, so maybe that explains it. It's very, very interesting psychologically, though.
I liked it because though it was uncomfortable how petulant she was (petulant was really the perfect word for her), it reminded me that it's good to struggle with moral issues and remember that you aren't the center of the universe every once in a while. And I'll admit that I cried at the end when the aunt and uncle took Kate to live with them to help ease their bereavement, and Aunt Barbara realized that all this time she'd been holding a grudge against Kate's deceased father and though she's been fair with Kate, she'd never been affectionate. Boo hoo!
Funny to think that this woman Charlotte Mary Yonge wrote hundreds of books and then faded completely into oblivion. Though no one much likes reading uncomfortable stories, and religion is pretty much out of vogue, so maybe that explains it. It's very, very interesting psychologically, though.
Read
March 8, 2018Generally I prefer Yonge's longer novels, but while this one was short it was also fun and had a happy ending -- by no means a given. There are things you always get with Yonge, huge families, a strong sense of Christian morality, great characters with justice done to all of them. I raced through this and enjoyed it a lot.
Read
June 13, 2023Charming and sweet!
November 4, 2024
3.5🌟 This was my first Charlotte Mary Yonge book and my first choice for Victober this year. I was hoping to love it much more than I did, but it was still an enjoyable read. Such lovely illustrations, too!
I have a hard time reading books (of any time period) in which children are misunderstood or treated unfairly. In my opinion, all Kate needed was some affection, patience and love. Because she was stuck with her Aunt Barbara (whose stern and uncompromising ways upset young Kate at every turn), the young Countess' behavior was far from admirable.
Although I thought the author's writing style lovely and straightforward, I did struggle while reading most of the book. The unending descriptions of Kate's frustrations and misdeeds became tedious after a while.
But, I was relieved and happy with the ending. It wrapped most of the story up in a satisfying way, but I still feel like Aunt Barbara needed a stern talking-to herself!
I'm not sure if I would read this book again, but I am interested in reading one of Charlotte Mary Yonge's adult novels. I'm not giving up on this author yet!
I have a hard time reading books (of any time period) in which children are misunderstood or treated unfairly. In my opinion, all Kate needed was some affection, patience and love. Because she was stuck with her Aunt Barbara (whose stern and uncompromising ways upset young Kate at every turn), the young Countess' behavior was far from admirable.
Although I thought the author's writing style lovely and straightforward, I did struggle while reading most of the book. The unending descriptions of Kate's frustrations and misdeeds became tedious after a while.
But, I was relieved and happy with the ending. It wrapped most of the story up in a satisfying way, but I still feel like Aunt Barbara needed a stern talking-to herself!
I'm not sure if I would read this book again, but I am interested in reading one of Charlotte Mary Yonge's adult novels. I'm not giving up on this author yet!
December 1, 2017
What a delightful discovery! I first encountered Charlotte M. Yonge's name in Barbara Pym's books, and just recently came across another reference to her in a Patricia Wentworth mystery. It said that her novels involved large Victorian families and their relationships, which interested me. So I downloaded a couple from gutenberg.org, the free ebook site, and started with this short one. I'm a fan.
Kate Umfraville is an 11-year-old orphan who has been raised in her maternal aunt's household, and has had no contact with her father's family. When the book opens, an Umfraville cousin, an earl, has just died, and the family honors fall, most unusually, to Kate. The only adult Umfravilles living in Britain, a pair of maiden aunts, take her in to educate and train her "to her new station." Let's just say the experience is an unhappy one for all concerned. Kate is a noisy, awkward, fanciful little girl, and cannot adjust to the strictures of her new home. She is also desperately homesick for her uncle's house and starved of love. But it all ends happily.
I'm looking forward to reading more Yonge.
Kate Umfraville is an 11-year-old orphan who has been raised in her maternal aunt's household, and has had no contact with her father's family. When the book opens, an Umfraville cousin, an earl, has just died, and the family honors fall, most unusually, to Kate. The only adult Umfravilles living in Britain, a pair of maiden aunts, take her in to educate and train her "to her new station." Let's just say the experience is an unhappy one for all concerned. Kate is a noisy, awkward, fanciful little girl, and cannot adjust to the strictures of her new home. She is also desperately homesick for her uncle's house and starved of love. But it all ends happily.
I'm looking forward to reading more Yonge.
December 31, 2024
I am more and more enamored with Charlotte Mary Yonge. This beautiful little story feels like it could have been an early influence for Anne of Green Gables or the Princess Diaries franchise. It also feels like The Secret Garden blended with A Little Princess. We have an imperfect orphaned heroine, a lot of mishaps, and some very delightful characters.
I’m so glad Kate @nocomplimentstoyourmother introduced me to Yonge last year! My first foray was The Pillars of the House, and I was delighted to find that this story is all about a character who later on makes an appearance in that book!
Yonge is the master of realistic dialogue. Her characters sometimes talk over each other, interject, and do very human-ish things when talking to each other. She also weaves faith beautifully into her stories, and her characters have wonderful growth.
I’m so glad Kate @nocomplimentstoyourmother introduced me to Yonge last year! My first foray was The Pillars of the House, and I was delighted to find that this story is all about a character who later on makes an appearance in that book!
Yonge is the master of realistic dialogue. Her characters sometimes talk over each other, interject, and do very human-ish things when talking to each other. She also weaves faith beautifully into her stories, and her characters have wonderful growth.
November 10, 2017
I always enjoy books by Charlotte Mary Yonge, and this was no exception. Countess Kate is one of her books written for younger readers but lovely enough to be enjoyed by adults. It's about a young orphan who suddenly finds herself a countess and moves into the house of some elderly aunts. It reminds me of Yonge's Two Sides of the Shield in that the main character has some flaws and needs to mature (and learn to trust God). It's not one of Yonge's best, not-to-be-missed books, but it's a sweet book that many people will enjoy reading.
August 28, 2021
This Victorian children's story is, unsurprisingly, rather Victorian. Cousin Kate turns out to be Countess Kate and so gets sent off to London to learn how to be one. It's not the most happy of experiences - for either Kate or her aunt. It's quite a short story which helps not drag out some of the less fun aspects of the novel, but it was mostly ok. Having read this I am actually more interested in Charlotte Yonge and I am actually curious about some of her other works so I would read more if I come across it. The version I read was illustrated by Gwen Raverat.
January 24, 2024
Oh, Kate! Kate!
When Kate learns she is to be a Countess, she has bright dreams about what that will mean. But living with a stern aunt, seems to bring out the negative side of Kate.
If you enjoy the author L T. Meade, then you will enjoy Yonge’s Countess Kate!
When Kate learns she is to be a Countess, she has bright dreams about what that will mean. But living with a stern aunt, seems to bring out the negative side of Kate.
If you enjoy the author L T. Meade, then you will enjoy Yonge’s Countess Kate!
May 26, 2019
Lovely story
This book was read to me as a small child and I did enjoy reading it to my little granddaughter who also struggles with theatrical tantrums and amazing imaginings.
This book was read to me as a small child and I did enjoy reading it to my little granddaughter who also struggles with theatrical tantrums and amazing imaginings.
July 12, 2023
3,5 stars
March 2, 2024
I read this today for the second time, I knew I'd read it before, but not sure when. It's a cute book
April 2, 2024
Enchanting!!!! A Victorian Anne of green gables type of book. Kate is utterly charming.
February 8, 2017
A spirited little orphan girl of eleven who lives with her uncle and his family in a country parsonage suddenly becomes a countess and has to go to London to be brought up like a lady by her two aunts.
Aunt Barbara frets about her charge's 'perverseness, heedlessness, ill-temper, disobedience, and rude ungainly ways', but as this is a Victorian story you can safely assume that Kate's behaviour is at worst a little boisterous. Children were supposed to sit in the corner and keep shtum back then.
Aunt Julia is kind but sickly, so the young Lady Caergwent is subjected to the stern regime of Aunt Barbara before something better comes along. Her elevation in status doesn't turn out to be a whole lot of fun:
"I wonder what is the use of being a countess, if one never is to do anything to please one's self, and one is live with a cross old aunt!"
Neither is it a whole lot of fun for the reader. I expected some My Fair Lady style pratfalls and gaucheries from clumsy Kate, not a sterile game of wits between a young girl and an inadequate guardian.
Yonge was a prolific writer. I had only read one of her novels before, set in lawless 15th century Austria called The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, which was insufferably wet and sentimental.
The conventional domesticity of the Victorian home was more her scene. Just about.
Aunt Barbara frets about her charge's 'perverseness, heedlessness, ill-temper, disobedience, and rude ungainly ways', but as this is a Victorian story you can safely assume that Kate's behaviour is at worst a little boisterous. Children were supposed to sit in the corner and keep shtum back then.
Aunt Julia is kind but sickly, so the young Lady Caergwent is subjected to the stern regime of Aunt Barbara before something better comes along. Her elevation in status doesn't turn out to be a whole lot of fun:
"I wonder what is the use of being a countess, if one never is to do anything to please one's self, and one is live with a cross old aunt!"
Neither is it a whole lot of fun for the reader. I expected some My Fair Lady style pratfalls and gaucheries from clumsy Kate, not a sterile game of wits between a young girl and an inadequate guardian.
Yonge was a prolific writer. I had only read one of her novels before, set in lawless 15th century Austria called The Dove in the Eagle's Nest, which was insufferably wet and sentimental.
The conventional domesticity of the Victorian home was more her scene. Just about.
October 1, 2014
This author was quite prolific with these little stories of English life and some are actually charming. The transcription to eBook can sometimes be a strain to read as typos abound. This story is of an orphaned child, Kate, raised by a widowed uncle along with his own children when she is thrust into a life she does not understand or want at the young age of 9 to learn to become the Countess Katherine of Caergwent, instruction provided by two maiden aunts. The reader does not build very much sympathy for the girl as she is very well-read and tends to think and act in ways she has read about that gives her a snobbish affect. She is finally rescued by another uncle and aunt, Colonel and Mrs Umfraville, who return from duty in India after the death of their sons and decide to help Katherine and themselves by becoming a family.
December 9, 2012
Ditto on Christian morals and being proper.. Beautiful illustrations from 1860s. Wish there was more on her growing older and how she developed, grew.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews