The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print

The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print edited by Benjamin Lefebvre was published by University of Toronto Press in December 2013. A part of "The L.M. Montgomery Library," this book reprints a collection of interviews, essays, forewords, reviews, and other published documents by and about L.M. Montgomery and provides notes and commentary about the documents. In his introduction, Benjamin Lefebvre states that the book "gathers together ninety pieces published from the immediate aftermath of the publication of Anne of Green Gables to a few years after Montgomery’s death. Among the highlights of this volume are a number of essays and letters by Montgomery as well as several interviews with her from across her career."


Here is the description of the volume from University of Toronto Press:

Now available in paperback, The L.M. Montgomery Reader assembles rediscovered primary material on one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors, spanning the entirety of her high-profile career and the years since her death.

The first volume, A Life in Print, focuses specifically on Montgomery’s role as a public celebrity and author of the resoundingly successful Anne of Green Gables (1908). The selections give a strong impression of Montgomery as a writer and cultural critic as she discusses a range of topics with wit, wisdom, and humour, including the natural landscape of Prince Edward Island, her wide readership, anxieties about modernity, and the continued relevance of "old ideals." These essays and interviews, joined by a number of additional pieces that discuss her work’s literary and cultural value in relation to an emerging canon of Canadian literature, make up nearly one hundred selections in all.

Each volume in The L.M. Montgomery Reader is accompanied by an extensive introduction and detailed commentary by leading Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre that traces the interplay between the author and the critic, as well as between the private and the public Montgomery.

Reviews

"While Lefebvre’s The L.M. Montgomery Reader is a vital resource of primary sources from and secondary assessments of one of Canada’s most popular twentieth-century authors, it is his insightful and knowledgeable analysis that shapes and gives meaning to the collection. The depth of his knowledge results in a work that is as comprehensible as it is comprehensive."
—Andre Narbonne, American Review of Canadian Studies

"With this volume, Lefebvre broadens our understanding of Montgomery’s reception and reputation both within Canada and internationally, unearthing previously obscure content and commentary and making it accessible to a far wider audience. This reader will thus prove a valuable resource to both existing and future scholars of Montgomery’s work and life, as well as those fans keen for a little more insight into the ever-elusive figure of L.M. Montgomery."
—Sarah Galletly, British Journal of Canadian Studies

The book includes the following contents:

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction: A Life in Print by Benjamin Lefebvre
A Note on the Text

1 [Such a Delightful Little Person] (1908)
2 Author Tells How He Wrote His Story (1908)
3 Origin of Popular Book (1908)
4 The Author of Anne of Avonlea (1909)
5 Miss Montgomery, the Author of the “Anne” Books (1909) by A. Wylie Mahon
6 A Trio of Women Writers (1909) by Donald B. Sincair
7 Canadian Writers on Canadian Literature – A Symposium (1910)
8 Says Woman’s Place Is Home (1910)
9 Want to Know How to Write Books? Well Here’s a Real Recipe (1910) by Phoebe Dwight
10 Miss Montgomery’s Visit to Boston (1910)
11 Four Questions Answered (1910) by Lucy Maud Montgomery
12 Miss L.M. Montgomery, Author of Anne of Green Gables (1910)
13 How I Began to Write (1911) by L.M. Montgomery
14 [Seasons in the Woods] (1911) by L.M. Montgomery
15 With Our Next-Door Neighbors: Prince Edward Island (1911) by Thomas F. Anderson
16 [The Marriage of L.M. Montgomery] (1911)
17 A Canadian Novelist of Note Interviewed (1911)
18 Interviews with Authors (1911) by Anne E. Nias
19 The Old Minister in The Story Girl (1912) by A. Wylie Mahon
20 L.M. Montgomery: Story Writer (1913) by Marjory MacMurchy
21 L.M. Montgomery at Women’s Canadian Club (1913)
22 L.M. Montgomery of the Island (1914) by Marjory MacMurchy
23 What Twelve Canadian Women Hope to See as the Outcome of the War (1915)
24 The Way to Make a Book (1915) by L.M. Montgomery
25 How I Began (1915) by L.M. Montgomery
26 [This Hideous War] (1915)
27 What Are the Greatest Books in the English Language? (1916)
28 My Favorite Bookshelf (1917) by L.M. Montgomery
29 The Author of Anne (1919) by Ethel M. Chapman
30 The Gay Days of Old (1919) by L.M. Montgomery
31 Introduction to Further Chronicles of Avonlea, by L.M. Montgomery (1920) by Nathan Haskell Dole
32 One Little Girl Who Wrote to L.M. Montgomery and Received a Reply (1920)
33 A Sextette of Canadian Women Writers (1920) by Owen McGillicuddy
34 Blank Verse? “Very Blank,” Said Father (1921) by L.M. Montgomery
35 “I Dwell among My Own People” (1921) by L.M. Montgomery
36 Bits from My Mailbag (1922) by L.M. Montgomery
37 From Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing: Advice, Opinions and a Statement of Their Own Working Methods by More Than One Hundred Authors (1923)
38 Novel Writing Notes (1923) by L.M. Montgomery
39 Proud That Canadian Literature Is Clean (1924)
40 Canadian Public Cold to Its Own Literature (1924)
41 Thinks Modern Flapper Will Be Strict Mother (1924)
42 Symposium on Canadian Fiction in Which Canadian Authors Express Their Preferences (1924)
43 Something about L.M. Montgomery (1925)
44 L.M. Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside: A Reader’s Journal (1925) by Altair
45 Famous Author and Simple Mother (1925) by Norma Phillips Muir
46 The Day before Yesterday (1927) by L.M. Montgomery Macdonald
47 Who’s Who in Canadian Literature: L.M. Montgomery (1927) by V.B. Rhodenizer
48 About Canadian Writers: L.M. Montgomery, the Charming Author of “Anne” (1927) by Katherine Hale
49 On Being of the Tribe of Joseph (1927) by Austin Bothwell
50 Minister’s Wife and Authoress (1928) by C.L. Cowan
51 An Autobiographical Sketch (1929) by L.M. Montgomery
52 Modern Girl Defined by Noted Writer (1929)
53 L.M. Montgomery’s Ideas (1930)
54 The ’Teen-Age Girl (1931) by L.M. Montgomery
55 Anne of Green Gables at Home (1931) by A.V. Brown
56 An Open Letter from a Minister’s Wife (1931) by L.M. Montgomery
57 Life Has Been Interesting (1933) by Mrs. L.M. Macdonald (L.M. Montgomery)
58 The Importance of Beauty in Everything (1933) by L.M. Montgomery
59 From Courageous Women (1934) by L.M. Montgomery
60 Author to Get No Profit as Green Gables Filmed (1934)
61 Film Preview of Noted Novel Honors Canadian Woman Writer (1934)
62 Is This My Anne (1935) by L.M. Montgomery
63 Foreword to Up Came the Moon, by Jessie Findlay Brown (1936) by L.M. Montgomery
64 Come Back with Me to Prince Edward Island (1936) by L.M. Montgomery
65 Memories of Childhood Days (1936) by L.M. Montgomery
66 The Mother of the Anne Series – Lucy M. Montgomery (1937) by Eva-Lis Wuorio, Translated by Vappu Kannas
67 The Book and the Film (1937)
68 For and about Girls (1937) by L.M. Montgomery
69 Prince Edward Island (1939) by L.M. Montgomery, O.B.E.
70 Beloved Writer Addresses Several Aurora Gatherings (1940)
71 Noted Author Dies Suddenly at Home Here (1942)
72 Lucy Maud Montgomery (1942)
73 L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne” (1942)
74 Body of Island’s Beloved Authoress Home for Burial (1942)
75 Island Writer Laid to Rest at Cavendish (1942)
76 The Creator of “Anne” (1942)
77 [L.M. Montgomery’s Last Poem] (1942)
78 L.M. Montgomery / Mrs. (Rev.) Ewen Macdonald (1942)
79 L.M. Montgomery as a Letter-Writer (1942) by E. Weber
80 L.M. Montgomery’s “Anne” (1944) by E. Weber

Epilogue: Anne of Green Gables – The Story of the Photoplay (1920) by Arabella Boone

Sources
Bibliography
Index


ISBN: 9781442644915


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Book cover of The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume One: A Life in Print.

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Created December 18, 2013. Last updated May 2, 2024.
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The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1900-1911

The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1900-1911 edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston was published by the Oxford University Press in 2013. The unabridged editions of L.M. Montgomery's journals paint a fuller, darker picture of her inner thoughts and moods, her passions, and her literary ambitions. This second volume of L.M. Montgomery's complete journals covers her first major literary success in writing Anne of Green Gables in 1908, followed by Anne of Avonlea, Kilmeny of the Orchard, and The Story Girl.


Here is the description of the volume from the Oxford University Press:

L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942) had begun keeping a private journal before she turned fifteen. From 1918 onward, she had carefully copied out her entries. She intended this detailed life record to be published posthumously. Montgomery's long-hidden version of her early life emerged as the bestselling Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volumes I-V, first published in 1985. Twenty-five years ago, it seemed prudent to offer a tightly organized book with a strong central narrative, but this decision meant setting aside many entries on her personal tastes, her effusions over landscape, and her increasing bouts of depression.

L.M. Montgomery's record of her life is published now for the first time without abridgement. The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The P.E.I. Years, 1889-1900 was published in early 2012 to much acclaim. This second book, covering the years 1901 to 1911, continues to provide a more comprehensive portrait of Montgomery's life in PEI than has ever been available before.

This publication covers Montgomery's early adult years, including her work as a newspaper editor in Halifax, Nova Scotia; her publishing career taking flight; the death of her grandmother; and her forthcoming marriage to a local clergyman. It also documents her own reflections on writing, her increasingly problematic mood swings and feelings of isolation, and her changing relationship with the world around her, particularly that of Prince Edward Island.

Available for the first time in paperback, this new edition recreates the format Montgomery herself devised. Over 300 of her photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, and professional portraits are reproduced, all with Montgomery's original placement and captions.

Review

"The lure of L.M. Montgomery is twofold, the book’s editors suggest, and as pages turn a study emerges of a young Maud Montgomery both exuberant and high-spirited and, at intervals, baffled, gloomy and burdened with despair. It is to her journals that she confides what she later called the “accumulation of woes” she felt shadowed her life, as well as the inspiration she found in nature and in books."
-Nancy Schiefer, The London Free Press (full review)

Image credit:
Book cover of The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1900–1911.

Purchase and read The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1900–1911:


Created July 29, 2013. Last updated August 22, 2024.
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