The Golden Road and the Brattle Book Shop, Part II

Sometimes I feel like L.M. Montgomery is following me around. Last summer, I spotted a postcard with an image of L.M. Montgomery's The Golden Road in the Brattle Book Shop in Boston, Massachusetts. Then, early this year, I saw an old edition of the book when my husband and I were out to dinner. I began feeling that these encounters weren't so random, so I decided to look for the book myself.

This summer, I was on a trip back to Boston, and I returned to the Brattle Book Shop.


I browsed through the books in the children's section, but I didn't see anything by L.M. Montgomery. Then I headed upstairs to the room filled with collectible books. After looking around for a while, I spotted a treasure—an old edition of The Golden Road sitting on a shelf labeled "Illustrated & Children's." After staring at it in astonishment, I took the book off the shelf and gently opened it up. Following a few moments of wonder, I headed downstairs to the cashier with the book in hand thinking I was meant to find it.


The woman at the register looked at the book, and then looked up at me and smiled.

"She's one of my favorites," she said.

"Mine too," I replied.


Happy 150th birthday, L.M. Montgomery. Your writings have touched so many. And I seem to run into your stories and the people who love them all the time.

Image credits:
Photographs by World of Anne Shirley.

Created November 30, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

The Golden Road and the Brattle Book Shop

A few months back, I wrote about how I encountered an old copy of The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery unexpectedly. Today, I was looking through old photos on my phone, and I realized I had another encounter with The Golden Road last summer.

At the time, I was exploring the Brattle Book Shop in Boston. It's one of the oldest book shops in the U.S., having been established in 1825, and it's one of my favorite places. While I was wandering through the store, I spotted a postcard-sized image of the 1913 cover of The Golden Road with art by George Gibbs. The picture was affixed to the side of a bookshelf. 

The Golden Road was first published in Boston by L.C. Page & Co in 1913. The Page Company was once located at 53 Beacon Street, just across the Boston Commons from the Brattle Book Shop. It's a short, less than 10-minute walk, between the publisher's office and the book shop. I imagine that first editions of L.M. Montgomery's novels were once sold in the Brattle Book Shop. I looked for an old copy of one of Montgomery's novels there, but had no luck finding one. Maybe next time.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

Created May 23, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

Sweet as a May mist

"On that road we heard the song of morning stars; we drank in fragrances aerial and sweet as a May mist..."
-L.M. Montgomery
The Golden Road

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

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Created May 1, 2024.
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The Golden Road Finds Me

Sometimes our lives intersect with people, with places, and with stories in unexplainable ways. These moments can feel like manifestations of serendipity, unexpected occurrences in life that bring us untold joy.

Earlier this week, my husband and I went out to dinner, and I experienced one of these unusual moments. We were walking down a beautiful staircase lined with books. I was admiring the design of the room and the old book covers. As I walked along, there was an old copy of The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery directly in front of me. Although I was scanning the shelves, I wasn't looking to find any book or author in particular. But somehow this book found me.

I stopped and stared at the book's blue spine for a moment. As I pulled my phone out of my purse to snap a photo, I called my husband back and pointed to the book. He looked at the book in surprise and bewilderment, asking me, "How did you find it?" I didn't have an answer. I hadn't been looking. Montgomery just tends to find me at various moments, on sometimes significant days, and in improbable places around the world. I'm left in wonder at the reason.


Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

Created February 9, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

a diamond winter day in February

"It was a diamond winter day in February—clear, cold, hard, brilliant."
-L.M. Montgomery
The Golden Road

Read more quotes by L.M. Montgomery.

Image credit:
Photograph by World of Anne Shirley.

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Created February 1, 2024. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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The Golden Road

The Golden Road by L.M. Montgomery was published in 1913 as a sequel to The Story Girl. In this novel, Bev reminisces of his friends and of days gone by on a golden road of childhood.

In The Golden Road, Sara and the other children decide to publish their own magazine to entertain themselves, named Our Magazine. Each child contributes to a particular column, including fiction, fashion, personals, and etiquette. They have several adventures together, including visits to the town "witch," Peg Bowen. Along with sharing adventures, the children have many fights and squabbles. They experience mishaps during a visit from their aunt and attend two weddings. In addition, they learn the secret of the Awkward Man and witness Cecily's bravery to support the missionaries.

By the end of the novel, the characters have grown. Sara, Bev, and Felix must leave Carlisle, and things will never be the same. But Bev's memories remain strong. As Blair Stanley states, "Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it."

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Created May 29, 2002. Last updated February 2, 2022.
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The Story Girl Series eTexts and Electronic Books

Where can I read The Story Girl and The Golden Road online?

Below are external links to read The Story Girl novels by L.M. Montgomery online. You can also download the ebooks as epub files, plain text files, or books for your Kindle.

The Story Girl Series

The Story Girl
Text | HTML | EPUB | Kindle

The Golden Road
Text | HTML | EPUB | Kindle


Image credit:
The Story Girl cover artwork by Elly MacKay from the 2018 Tundra Books edition of the novel.

Created May 1, 2000. Last updated September 7, 2022.
© worldofanneshirley.com

The Avonlea Album

The Avonlea Album is a book edited by Fiona McHugh that was published by Firefly Books in 1991. The book features stills from Sullivan Entertainment's Road to Avonlea television series. The 72-page book details Sara Stanley's first year in Avonlea. Throughout the book, there are quotations from L.M. Montgomery's The Story Girl, The Golden Road, Chronicles of Avonlea, Further Chronicles of Avonlea, and The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume II.

The preface of the book describes how L.M. Montgomery's writings inspired the television series: "These two books, The Story Girl and The Golden Road form the framework of the family television series, The Road to Avonlea. Additional characters and incidents from two collections of Montgomery's short stories, Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea, lend texture and density to the structure. Thematically and visually, The Road to Avonlea strives to recreate Lucy Maud Montgomery's dream of childhood, that 'fair, lost' place 'with a spell of eternity woven over it.'"


Here is the book's description from its back cover:

Avonlea is the maritime community made famous in the story Anne of Green Gables, brought back to television by Sullivan Films in the series "Road to Avonlea," based on the further novels of L.M. Montgomery. This sparkling, episodic series follows the adventures of Sara Stanley, the most enchanting heroine since Anne Shirley.

Image credit:
Scanned book cover of my copy of The Avonlea Album.

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Created December 17, 1999. Last updated January 7, 2025.
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