Thistle Harvest: Celebrating 100 Years of The Blue Castle (2026)

Thistle Harvest: Celebrating 100 Years of The Blue Castle (2026) is a new theatrical adaptation by Taylor Grist based on L.M. Montgomery's novel The Blue Castle, which was first published in 1926.

Thistle Harvest was produced to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the novel. According to the production's website, "One hundred years later, Thistle Harvest brings Valancy's funny, romantic and quietly rebellious story to the stage for a new audience—as readers and scholars around the world celebrate the novel's centenary."

The play premiered on September 26, 2026, and performances are scheduled for September 27th and October 1st–4th at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Norval, Ontario, Canada. This location is near where L.M. Montgomery once lived when she wrote The Blue Castle 100 years ago. Thistle Harvest is directed and produced by Taylor Grist and Katie Cleland-Busuttil.

In an article published in The Hamilton Spectator, Taylor Grist talks about translating the play's language for the stage. He explains that the play's name Thistle Harvest is taken from the novel. In The Blue Castle, the protagonist Valancy Stirling reads a book called Thistle Harvest by John Foster that gives her courage in her darkest moments. In the same interview, Grist expresses his hope that the play leaves the audience with the following message: "It’s never too late in your life to live the life you want to live and to start living that life."

In an article published in HaltonHillsToday.ca, Grist gives the background on how he was asked to adapt L.M. Montgomery's work as a play to celebrate the novel's centennial. He also talks about his approach in bringing the story to the stage in an impactful and energetic way.

Thistle Harvest is described as follows at the production's website:

Twenty-nine years of being good is quite enough.

For twenty-nine years, Valancy Stirling has been the dutiful daughter, the family wallflower and, by her own estimation, rather spectacularly unhappy.

Then a devastating piece of news gives her something she has never had before: permission to stop being afraid.

Suddenly, Valancy is speaking her mind, defying her formidable family and stepping into a life that bears a surprising resemblance to the imaginary "Blue Castle" where she has always escaped. And somewhere along the way there is a mysterious nature writer, an infamous man named Barney Snaith, a scandal or two—and perhaps even love.

Funny, theatrical and full of heart, Thistle Harvest brings L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle to the stage as Valancy takes the audience along on her unconventional journey toward a life that is finally her own.

Official Website:
Thistle Harvest Prod.

Image Credit:
Thistle Harvest graphic from Thistle Harvest Prod.

References:
Collington, Christian. (August 25, 2026). ‘Thistle Harvest’ brings beloved Lucy Maud Montgomery novel to the stage in Halton Hills The Hamilton Spectator. Retrieved from: https://www.thespec.com/news/canada/thistle-harvest-brings-beloved-lucy-maud-montgomery-novel-to-the-stage-in-halton-hills/article_6147d97f-09d4-5709-81eb-6994c5d51456.html

Garbutt, Herb. (September 21, 2026). New play debuting in Norval marks 100 years of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘The Blue Castle.’ HaltonHillsToday.ca. Retrieved from: https://www.haltonhillstoday.ca/local-news/new-play-debuting-in-norval-marks-100-years-of-lm-montgomerys-the-blue-castle-12802891

Created October 1, 2026.
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The Blue Castle at 100: Symposium & Exhibit Launch at the University of Guelph

On Friday, October 23, 2026, the University of Guelph and the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island are co-sponsoring a special event to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery's novel The Blue Castle.

The special event includes a symposium and an exhibit launch at The University of Guelph. The symposium will take place from 9:00 am–3:30 pm (EDT) on October 23, 2026 in the McLaughlin Library 246 Robert Whitelaw Room.

You can register to attend the event in person, and if you don't live nearby, you can register to view the event online at the University of Guelph website.

Here are the details on the event from the L.M. Montgomery Institute:

In 1922, L.M. Montgomery and her family vacationed in the Muskoka Lakes region of Ontario. The beauty of rugged landscape inspired her to write The Blue Castle (1926), a departure from her previous works, and her only novel set entirely outside of Prince Edward Island. In celebration of the 100th anniversary of this unique, beloved text, join us for a one-day symposium and exhibit launch, hosted by the University of Guelph’s McLaughlin Library in partnership with the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island. Hear presentations about the novel’s literary legacies and learn more about the Muskoka region that captured Montgomery’s imagination.

The Blue Castle at 100: L.M. Montgomery’s Ontario Story, Event Schedule

9:00–10:30 AM, Welcome and Session 1: “The Blue Castle’s Productive Disruptions”

Session Chair: Heidi Lawrence (Brigham Young University)
Rita Bode (Trent University), “Family Life Interrupted”
Laura Robinson (Chair, LMMI Management Committee, Acadia University), “‘mosque and palace and minaret’: Decentering Whiteness in The Blue Castle”
Melanie Fishbane (Western University), “Finding Her Happy Hour: Queering Happily Ever After in The Blue Castle”

10:30–11:00 AM, Refreshment Break

11:00 AM–12:15 PM, Session 2: “Time, Place, and Things of The Blue Castle”

Session Chair: Heidi Lawrence (Brigham Young University)
Allison McBain Hudson (Current LMMI Visiting Scholar, Dublin City University), “Objects as Agents of Change in The Blue Castle”
Tara K. Parmiter (New York University), “‘The Son of Purple Pills’: The Nature of Family Shame in The Blue Castle,”
Andrea McKenzie (York University), “A Jazz Age Fairy Tale

12:15–1:30 PM Lunch on your own (many options available on and near campus)

1:30–2:30 PM, Session 3: “100 Years of The Blue Castle: The Exhibit Overview”

Exhibit Curators: Ashley Shifflett McBrayne (University of Guelph) and Emily Woster (The College of St. Scholastica)

2:30–2:45 PM, Special Guests: Jack and Linda Hutton, from Bala’s Museum with Memories of Lucy Maud Montgomery

2:45 PM-, Refreshments and time to explore the exhibit

Official Websites:
Registration for the Symposium and Exhibit Launch - The Blue Castle at 100: L.M. Montgomery's Ontario Story at the University of Guelph
Symposium & Exhibit Launch: 100 Years of The Blue Castle at the University of Guelph - schedule and info at the L.M. Montgomery Institute webpage

Image Credit:
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. Book cover of the 1941 Harrap edition.

Created September 28, 2026.
© worldofanneshirley.com

The Blue Castle Book Club Read

This September, Reddit's Book Club Community has selected L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle as one of its Gutenberg Novella selections. First published in 1926, The Blue Castle celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, making it a special time to read or re-read the story. Anyone who knows me, knows that Valancy Stirling is one of my favorite literary heroines. Years ago, I wrote The Blue Castle Encyclopedia (beware of spoilers in it if you're new to the book) and several other webpages about the book, back when there was little info about the story online at all.

Reddit's Book Club community is great fun. The moderators hold multiple concurrent book club reads each month. You can drop in and participate in as many discussions as you like. Here's a look at the book club's calendar. For September, it includes Katabasis, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Blue Castle, Hungry Ghosts, The Vegetarian, Ficciones, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Books of Jacob, The Moonstone, Parisian Days, Shattered Gods, City of Illusions, Among the Burning Flowers, 2010: Odyssey Two, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Platform Decay, Sweet Berries, The Trouble With Peace, plus The Monthly Mini and Poetry Corner. Beyond having a wide selection of options to read, I love that the Reddit Book Club is an open community and not a walled off part of the internet.

The Blue Castle discussion schedule has three check-in dates:

September 16, 2026 - Discussion 1 - Chapter I through XIII
September, 23, 2026 - Discussion 2 - Chapter XIV through XXVIII
September, 30, 2026 - Discussion 3 - Chapter XXIX through end
[Marginalia] Gutenberg Novella | The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery - for jotting down thoughts, musings, ideas, or background info while reading the novel
I hope you'll join us in reading The Blue Castle this month!


Website:
[Schedule] Gutenberg Novella | The Blue Castle by L M Montgomery

Image Credits:
Edited image of The Blue Castle (1926) from archive.org.

Created September 13, 2026. Last updated October 1, 2026.
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An Article on Anne of Green Gables and Grief by Julie Z. Weil

There's a beautiful article by Julie Z. Weil, entitled "How the Anne of Green Gables books guided me through grief," in today's publication of The Washington Post. Weil reflects on many moments in her life where she turned to L.M. Montgomery's novels for comfort and guidance. Weil writes, "I first read the Canadian author’s books when I was 8, and for years they had served as a guide for me. Starting at 12, I wrote letters to my future self on my birthday once a decade, inspired by Montgomery’s 'Emily of New Moon.'" At age 23, Weil writes about her realization that she wasn't in love with someone who said they loved her, and she turned to Anne of the Island.

Later, Weil married a man whose proposal included memorized paragraphs from Montgomery’s The Blue Castle. When she and her husband lose their first baby, she writes, "my parents asked what they could bring to the hospital for me. I told them to bring my childhood boxed set of the Anne of Green Gables books." Remembering that Anne's first baby died, Weil turned to Anne's House of Dreams for comfort and to find her way forward. After many rounds of fertility treatments, she gives birth to her daughter, who she calls "My Anne."

Weil reflects, "Over a lifetime of reading, books teach us how a whole wide catalogue of heartbreaks unfold before we live any of them." She goes on to say, "We have no promise that the stories of our lives will unfold with the structure imposed on novels." She's right, books teach us and give us a window to a wide array of emotional experiences, and they can provide us with ideas and guidance on ways we can move forward. Montgomery's stories of Anne, Emily, and Valancy provide comfort in challenging times.


Image credit:
Screencapture from The Washington Post.

Reference:
Weil, Julie Z. (2026, January 18). How the Anne of Green Gables books guided me through grief. The Washington Post. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2026/01/18/anne-green-gables-grief-stillborn/

Created January 18, 2026.
© worldofanneshirley.com

The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript

The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript by L.M. Montgomery and edited and annotated by Carolyn Strom Collins was released by Nimbus Publishing in May 2024. L.M. Montgomery published The Blue Castle in 1926, and it was her first novel written for adults.

In The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript, Carolyn Strom Collins presents a full transcription of L.M. Montgomery's handwritten text of the novel. The book includes the edits and notes L.M. Montgomery made while composing the story, providing insight into her creative process. As one example, L.M. Montgomery initially named the protagonist Miranda before deciding to name her Valancy. In addition, the book displays images of select pages from Montgomery's original handwritten manuscript.


Here is the description of the book from Nimbus Publishing:

Published for the first time ever, the first draft of The Blue Castle exactly as L. M. Montgomery originally wrote it, with critical context from a leading Montgomery scholar.

Available for the first time ever, the original draft of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s The Blue Castle is presented with scribbled notes, character name changes, additions and deletions, and other pre-publication changes, offering fascinating new insight into the writing process of one of Canada’s most beloved writers.

First published in 1926, The Blue Castle is one of Montgomery’s few adult novels—and the only one set entirely outside of the author’s home province of Prince Edward Island. Montgomery scholar Carolyn Strom Collins provides a transcription of the text and notes from Montgomery’s handwritten manuscript, showing how they were integrated to form the published novel. (Major changes include changing the inspiring main character’s name from Miranda to Valancy, and Barney’s beloved cat from Jigglesqueak to Banjo.)

Edited with a keen eye to detail and deep respect for the writer’s creative process, and featuring high-quality photographs of select pages of the original manuscript, The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript is a necessary addition to any Montgomery lover’s collection.

Image credit:
Book cover of The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript.

Purchase and read The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript:


Created September 19, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things.

"I’m sick of the fragrance of dead things."
-L.M. Montgomery
Valancy Stirling in The Blue Castle

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

Purchase and read the The Blue Castle:




Created May 31, 2024.
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The Blue Castle Graphic Novel

 

The Blue Castle is one of my favorite stories by L.M. Montgomery. I wanted to share an in-progress graphic novel adaptation of The Blue Castle by Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger. Maaike is a Canadian artist who is based in Toronto, and her specialties include printmaking and pen & ink drawing. She began drawing and designing her graphic novel in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the introduction to her project on Tumblr, Maaike writes that she thought The Blue Castle seemed "to be a good choice for my first graphic novel project – an opportunity to practice art work and learn from mistakes without the pressure of writing my own story and characters." She has currently concluded Part 2 of the story.

I just began exploring this adaptation, and I think the novel is a beautiful choice for her work. I'm excited to view both Valancy's personal growth and Maaike's artistic growth as the project continues.


External Links:
The Blue Castle Graphic Novel by Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger adapted from the novel by L.M. Montgomery
Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger's Website

Image Credit:
Page from The Blue Castle Graphic Novel by Maaike Bouhuyzen-Wenger adapted from the novel by L.M. Montgomery.

Created May 29, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

November—with uncanny witchery

"November—with uncanny witchery in its changed trees. With murky red sunsets flaming in smoky crimson behind the westering hills. With dear days when the austere woods were beautiful and gracious in a dignified serenity of folded hands and closed eyes—days full of a fine, pale sunshine that sifted through the late, leafless gold of the juniper-trees and glimmered among the grey beeches, lighting up evergreen banks of moss and washing the colonnades of the pines."
-L.M. Montgomery
The Blue Castle

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

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Created November 24, 2023. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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Some things come by lightning flashes.

"Some things dawn on you slowly. Some things come by lightning flashes."
-L.M. Montgomery
The Blue Castle

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

Purchase and read the The Blue Castle:




Created October 19, 2022. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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Upcoming Film Adaptation of The Blue Castle

Cinegryphon Entertainment is producing a feature film adaptation of The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery according to an exclusive report in The Hollywood Reporter. Cinegryphon is an independent entertainment company specializing in film and television production that was founded in 2021 by Scott Aharoni, Mustafa Kaymak, and Sinan Eczacibasi.

Scott Aharoni described the story, saying:

"Valancy’s inspiring story is a beautiful reminder of how there is no such thing as wasted time — that no matter how ‘old’ or ‘late’ we may be, we can always start taking ownership of our own lives and live the one we’ve always desired or dreamed of having."

Personally, I’m really fond of Valancy and The Blue Castle, so I’m looking forward to this production. I'm curious to see who will play Valancy.

Created June 2, 2022.
© worldofanneshirley.com

If it had not rained on a certain May morning...

"If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different."
-L.M. Montgomery
The Blue Castle

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Illustration of a woman with an umbrella adapted from a United States Rubber Company advertisement in The Ladies' Home Journal (January 1921). Public Domain.

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Created May 16, 2021. Last updated May 16, 2024.
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After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery's Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916-1941

After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery's Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916-1941 edited by Hildi Froese Tiessen and Paul Gerard Tiessen was published by the University of Toronto Press in June 2006. The book is a collection of letters from L.M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, a Mennonite farmer living in Alberta, Canada. The pair corresponded with one another for nearly forty years.

Montgomery took great pleasure in receiving Weber's thoughtful and intellectually stimulating letters. Both Montgomery and Weber had literary aspirations, and they wrote to one another about literature and writing, world events and politics, and their daily lives. In appreciation of their close and meaningful friendship, L.M. Montgomery dedicated her novel The Blue Castle to "Mr. Ephraim Weber, M.A. who understands the architecture of blue castles."

In 1960, early letters from L.M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber were published as The Green Gables Letters: From L.M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, 1905-1909 in a book edited by Wilfrid Eggleston. After Green Gables is a collection of Montgomery's later letters to Weber from 1916-1941 over a period spanning 25 years.

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

Ephraim Weber (1870-1956) was a struggling young writer when he began corresponding with L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942) in 1902, six years before she published her first novel. Weber's initial letter was that of an admirer. Montgomery responded warmly, and the two quickly began a correspondence that became an intellectual mainstay for both of them over the following forty years. After Green Gables is a fascinating collection of letters sent by Montgomery to Weber between 1916 and 1941. This was the period of Montgomery's greatest literary success, but privately she was deeply troubled by her unhappy marriage.

The letters, revealing an intense social and intellectual dynamic between Montgomery and Weber, cover, among other subjects, their strong differences of opinion on matters such as pacifism and war and their joint rejection of the effects of literary modernism. Drawing on Weber's voluminous correspondence with other Canadian figures —particularly journalist Wilfred Eggleston—editors Paul Tiessen and Hildi Froese Tiessen skilfully illuminate Weber's interaction with Montgomery, especially in matters concerning literature and culture, religion and politics, and education and entertainment. The editors provide various readings of Weber, based on his aspirations as a writer, his active participation in the Canadian culture of his day (including his friendships with hometown schoolmate William Lyon Mackenzie King and community leader Leslie Staebler), and his heritage as a Mennonite.

After Green Gables brings to life a distinctly Canadian literary and intellectual association of writers. Montgomery's letters to a man committed to writing and to the cultural development of Canada reveal her intellectual preoccupations and her personal hardships. This is an essential text for Montgomery fans and scholars as well as readers with an interest in the development of Canada's literary culture.

Reviews

"After Green Gables is an outstanding contribution to the field of Montgomery studies. Paul Tiessen and Hildi Froese Tiessen have undertaken the painstaking task of deciphering, transcribing, and annotating L.M. Montgomery’s letters to Ephraim Weber, which shed light into an intriguing range of topics of interest to both. This book is exciting, timely, and important." -Irene Gammel, Ryerson University

"As social history, this collection of Montgomery’s letters to Weber (his half of the correspondence has been lost) is invaluable...After Green Gables should be in every Canadian library, and in every personal or public collection of Montgomery resources."
-Virginia Gillham, Canadian Book Review Annual Online (full review)

Image credit:
Scan of my book cover of After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery's Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916-1941.

Purchase and read After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery's Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916-1941:


Created July 28, 2006. Last updated October 21, 2024.
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