L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930-1933

L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930–1933 edited by Jen Rubio was published by Rock's Mill Press in 2019. 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. In this seventh volume of L.M. Montgomery's complete journals, Montgomery gives a compelling account of painful difficulties, mysterious secrets, and deep disappointments.


Here is the description of the volume from the Rock's Mill Press:

L.M. Montgomery’s journals speak of simple pleasures and deep joy, dogged worries and profound disappointments. The story of her life from 1930 to 1933 is as gripping as the earlier volumes published by Rock’s Mills Press. This volume is different from earlier ones in a surprising way, however: “It has happened. It is too cruel and hideous and unexpected to write about. I have spent two days in hell. I cannot see how I am to go on living. . . . And I have had to keep up a face to the world when something in my soul was bleeding to death” (February 5, 1933). The truth of this “cruel and hideous” event is, for a time, too diffcult to commit to her journals; it casts a shadow of shame on Montgomery’s life for months. When she finally explains, it is page-turning material that gives a fascinating look into the hidden side of life in Ontario almost a century ago. Montgomery also recounts other difficult situations facing her in those years, including attempts to help a slippery young man facing embezzlement charges and a younger woman’s obsessive crush on her. Over 100 of Montgomery’s own photographs are included, many never before published. This edition also includes an introduction, extensive notes, and an index of photography, all original to this edition.

2019
Paperback, 386 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1-77244-175-8

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Created June 1, 2018. Last updated August 23, 2024.
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Anne's Kindred Spirits (An Anne Chapter Book)

Anne's Kindred Spirits by Kallie George is the second book in the Anne Chapter Book series, which was inspired by L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. The children's book series features charming illustrations by Abigail Halpin. In Anne's Kindred Spirits, Kallie George retells the story of Anne Shirley's new friendship with Diana Barry. Geared toward early readers, the 72-page long picture book was published by Tundra Books, a division of Penguin Random House in May 2019.

Here is the description of the book from Penguin Random House:

The sweet and funny second book in a new early-reader series, starring the spirited and outspoken Anne Shirley as she makes friends and settles into life at Green Gables — with a few hijinks along the way, of course!

Anne is nervous and excited to meet Diana, a neighbor girl who she just knows will be a kindred spirit. She’s even more excited when she learns that she’s invited to her very first picnic! Until Marilla’s precious brooch goes missing and it looks like it’s Anne’s fault. That is, Marilla is upset and Anne’s picnic adventure is now in jeopardy. Ultimately, the misunderstanding with the brooch is resolved and Anne is able to go to the picnic. Anne and Diana’s friendship blossoms and Anne’s bond with Matthew and Marilla grows stronger.

Lovingly adapted by Kallie George with beautiful nostalgic illustrations by Abigail Halpin, this series is perfect for fans of Anne, new and old.

ISBN-13: 978-1770499324

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Created June 3, 2019. Last updated November 19, 2024.
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A World of Songs: Selected Poems, 1894-1921

A World of Songs: Selected Poems, 1894-1921 by L.M. Montgomery and edited by Benjamin Lefebvre was published by University of Toronto Press in January 2019. A part of "The L.M. Montgomery Library," this book reprints a collection 50 poems by L.M. Montgomery that were published over a period of 25 years.


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

Celebrated as a novelist and made famous by her novel Anne of Green Gables and its sequels, L.M. Montgomery (1874–1942) is far less known for also writing and publishing hundreds of poems over a period of half a century. Although this output included a chapbook and a full-length collection in which she presented herself primarily as a nature poet, most of her poems appeared in periodicals, including women’s magazines, farm papers, faith-based periodicals, daily and weekly newspapers, and magazines for children. As a shrewd businesswoman, she learned to find the balance between literary quality and commercial saleability and continued to publish poetry even though it paid less than short fiction.

A World of Songs: Selected Poems, 1894–1921, the second volume in The L.M. Montgomery Library, gathers a selection of fifty poems originally published across a twenty-five-year period. Benjamin Lefebvre organizes this work within the context of Montgomery’s life and career, claiming her not only as a nature poet but also as the author of a wider range of "songs": of place, of memory, of lamentation, of war, of land and sea, of death, and of love. Many of these poems echo motifs that readers of Montgomery’s novels will recognize, and many more explore surprising perspectives through the use of male speakers. These poems offer today’s readers a new facet of the career of Canada’s most enduringly popular author.

This book collects a sample of fifty poems by L.M. Montgomery originally published in periodicals across a quarter of a century. It discusses this work in the context of early Canadian poetry and North American periodical culture of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.

Reviews

"The collection of fifty poems published over a twenty-five-year period, beginning in 1894 with the first, is not only the second volume in The L.M. Montgomery Library but a step in a major reconsideration of her poetry."
—Anne Burke, Prairie Journal

"L.M. Montgomery’s verse has considerably more merit than that of many popular versifiers and yet has been unduly neglected, even by Montgomery scholars. A World of Songs expands the current limited horizon of Montgomery’s verse and possesses biographical/historical interest, including insights into publishing verse in the late Romantic period."
—Kevin McCabe, co-editor of The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery

The book includes the following contents:

Acknowledgments
A Note on the Author
Abbreviations
Preface

OVERTURE
The Gable Window

PRELUDE
The Poet’s Thought

SONGS OF PLACE
In Lovers’ Lane
The Fir Lane
In an Old Garden
The Old Home Calls
The Exile
The Summons

SONGS OF MEMORY
Three Days
Companioned
Do You Remember?
Memory Pictures

INTERLUDE
The Singer

SONGS OF LAMENTATION
Irrevocable
I Would Be Well
Night Watches
If I Had Known
The Book
Longing
The Mother

SONGS OF WAR
The Last Prayer
The Three Songs
We Who Wait
Our Women

INTERLUDE
One of the Shepherds

SONGS OF LAND AND SEA
When the Fishing Boats Go Out
When the Fishing Boats Come In
Rain in the Woods
My Pictures
The Wind in the Poplars
The Sea-Shell
Before Storm
A Shore Picture
The Sea to the Shore

SONGS OF DEATH
Too Late
I Have Buried My Dead
Omega
An Old Man’s Grave
The Treasures

SONGS OF LOVE
If Love Should Come
Assurance
The Gray Silk Gown
On the Bridge
Gratitude
With Tears They Buried You To-day
Forever
To One Hated
The Lover’s Catechism

POSTLUDE
The Poet

CODA
What I Would Ask of Life

Afterword

Notes
Bibliography
Index by Title
Index by Date
Index by First Line

ISBN: 9781487505097


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Created February 10, 2019. Last updated May 6, 2024.
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A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917

A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917 by L.M. Montgomery and edited by Benjamin Lefebvre was published by University of Toronto Press in November 2018. A part of "The L.M. Montgomery Library," this book reprints a collection of L.M. Montgomery's early writings, which were originally published in periodicals, as well as her memoir The Alpine Path.


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

Years before she published her internationally celebrated first novel, Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery (1874–1942) started contributing short works to periodicals across North America. While these works consisted primarily of poems and short stories, she also experimented with a wider range of forms, particularly during the early years of her career, at which point she tested out several authorial identities before settling on the professional moniker "L.M. Montgomery."

A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917 is the first in a series of volumes collecting Montgomery’s extensive contributions to periodicals. Leading Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre discusses these so-called miscellaneous pieces in relation to the works of English-speaking women writers who preceded her and the strategies they used to succeed, including the decision to publish under gender-neutral signatures. Among the highlights of the volume are Montgomery’s contributions to student periodicals, a weekly newspaper column entitled "Around the Table," a long-lost story narrated first by a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage and then by the man she wishes she had married instead, and a new edition of her 1917 celebrity memoir, "The Alpine Path." Drawing fascinating links to Montgomery’s life writing, career, and fiction, this volume will offer scholars and readers alike an intriguing new look at the work of Canada’s most enduringly popular author.

This book collects a majority of Montgomery’s early and non-fiction publications across a variety of forms and places them in the context of her career and the narrative strategies of women authors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Reviews

"In this first volume of ‘The L.M. Montgomery Library,’ Benjamin Lefebvre collects and expertly annotates Montgomery’s non-fiction periodical writing, presenting it as a record of her literary apprenticeship … The thirty-five instalments of her column ‘Around the Table,’ signed ‘Cynthia,’ are enthralling,...and A Name for Herself is worth the cover price for these pieces alone."
—Faye Hammill, Times Literary Supplement

"In this rich volume, Lefebvre’s selections reveal Montgomery as a professional writer who deserves a strong and enduring presence in Canadian letters."
—Rita Bode, Trent University in University of Toronto Quarterly: Letters in Canada 2018

The book includes the following contents:

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
A Note on the Author
Abbreviations
Preface
A Note on the Text

PART 1 EARLY AND STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
The Wreck of the "Marco Polo"
A Western Eden
From Prince Albert to P.E. Island
The Usual Way
Extracts from the Diary of a Second Class Mouse
High School Life in Saskatchewan
Valedictory
"Portia" – A Study
"Which Has the Most Patience under the Ordinary Cares and Trials of Life – Man or Woman?"
Crooked Answers
The Bad Boy of Blanktown School
James Henry, Truant
A Girl’s Place at Dalhousie College
To the Editor

Part 2 MAUD MONTGOMERY, NEWSPAPER WOMAN
A Half-Hour in an Old Cemetery
Around the Table
Half an Hour with Canadian Mothers
Christmas Shopping in Halifax Stores
Many Admiring Glances Bestowed upon Graduates
Netted Doily
Innocent Irreverence

Part 3 THE UPWARD CLIMB TO HEIGHTS SUBLIME
Two Sides of a Life Story
The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career

Afterword

Notes
Bibliography
Index

ISBN: 9781487504038


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Created December 6, 2018. Last updated May 6, 2024.
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Marilla of Green Gables

Marilla of Green Gables: A Novel by Sarah McCoy was published in October 2018 by William Morrow Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. This work of historical fiction expands the world of Anne of Green Gables to tell the backstory of Marilla Cuthbert. Did you ever wonder about her early life and romance with John Blythe? Anne Shirley was curious, and I'm sure many readers of Anne of Green Gables were too.

Here is the description of the book from HarperCollins Publishers:

A bold, heartfelt tale of life at Green Gables . . . before Anne: A marvelously entertaining and moving historical novel, set in rural Prince Edward Island in the nineteenth century, that imagines the young life of spinster Marilla Cuthbert, and the choices that will open her life to the possibility of heartbreak—and unimaginable greatness.

Plucky and ambitious, Marilla Cuthbert is thirteen years old when her world is turned upside down. Her beloved mother dies in childbirth, and Marilla suddenly must bear the responsibilities of a farm wife: cooking, sewing, keeping house, and overseeing the day-to-day life of Green Gables with her brother, Matthew and father, Hugh.

In Avonlea—a small, tight-knit farming town on a remote island—life holds few options for farm girls. Her one connection to the wider world is Aunt Elizabeth "Izzy" Johnson, her mother’s sister, who managed to escape from Avonlea to the bustling city of St. Catharines. An opinionated spinster, Aunt Izzy’s talent as a seamstress has allowed her to build a thriving business and make her own way in the world.

Emboldened by her aunt, Marilla dares to venture beyond the safety of Green Gables and discovers new friends and new opportunities. Joining the Ladies Aid Society, she raises funds for an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity in nearby Nova Scotia that secretly serves as a way station for runaway slaves from America. Her budding romance with John Blythe, the charming son of a neighbor, offers her a possibility of future happiness—Marilla is in no rush to trade one farm life for another. She soon finds herself caught up in the dangerous work of politics, and abolition—jeopardizing all she cherishes, including her bond with her dearest John Blythe. Now Marilla must face a reckoning between her dreams of making a difference in the wider world and the small-town reality of life at Green Gables.

Reviews

"Great for lovers of Anne who need more Avonlea in their lives. This book was very well done in the style of L.M. Montgomery that I had to remind myself that it wasn't actually written by her..."
― Alison Frenzel, Fabled Bookshop and Cafe, TX

"Fans of the Anne of Green Gables series will rejoice at this warm and heartfelt addition to their world. McCoy’s love for the characters is palpable, and with an insightful eye she illuminates the original Avonlea, while also offering glimpses into the turbulent history of the time."
— Madeline Miller, Author of Circe

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Created November 6, 2018. Last updated October 5, 2024.
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Goodnight, Anne

Goodnight, Anne is a children's book by Kallie George with dreamy illustrations by Geneviève Godbout that was inspired by L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. It is a bedtime story about gratitude that introduces children to Anne Shirley's story. The 36-page long picture book is written for children aged 3 to 7 and was published by Tundra Books, a division of Penguin Random House Canada in September 2018.

Here is the description of the book from Penguin Random House Canada:

A beautiful bedtime picture book based on the best-selling Anne of Green Gables, introducing the irrepressible and beloved Anne to younger readers. It’s time for Anne to go to bed, but not before she wishes goodnight to everyone and everything she loves!

Under the watchful eye of her adoptive mother Marilla, Anne has come to cherish life at Green Gables — the dearest, loveliest spot in the world, and her true home. Every night before she goes to bed, she thinks of all the people and places she loves: her family, her bosom friend Diana, her splendid teacher Miss Stacy, beloved tree Snow Queen, the Lake of Shining Waters and the brilliant sky above. Anne even wishes goodnight — or good riddance! — to pesky classmate Gilbert and nosy neighbor Mrs. Lynde. And through it all, Anne’s imagination takes flight on a whimsical journey through Avonlea.

This sweet and heartfelt picture book is a perfect read-aloud introduction to L.M. Montgomery’s beloved Anne and will delight her brand-new fans and lifelong readers alike.

ISBN-13: 978-0735271739

Reviews

"“A nearly flawless book that invokes nostalgia in older readers and will undoubtedly make newcomers clamor to know what happens next."
— Kirkus Reviews

"[A] perfect introduction to the timeless and beloved story of Anne of Green Gables."
— Toronto Star

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Created October 25, 2018. Last updated October 29, 2024.
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Anne Arrives (An Anne Chapter Book)

Anne Arrives by Kallie George is the first book in the Anne Chapter Book series, which was inspired by L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. The children's book series features charming illustrations by Abigail Halpin. Kallie George retells the story of Anne Shirley's arrival at Green Gables. Geared toward early readers, the 72-page long picture book was published by Tundra Books, a division of Penguin Random House in September 2018.

Here is the description of the book from Penguin Random House:

The charming first book in a new early-reader series, starring the spirited — and outspoken — Anne Shirley as she first arrives at Green Gables.

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert need help on their farm, so they’ve adopted what they hope will be a sturdy, helpful boy. Instead, Matthew finds Anne awaiting him at the train station — imaginative, brash, redheaded Anne-with-an-e. With her place at the Cuthberts’ at risk — particularly if nosy neighbor Mrs. Lynde has anything to say about it — Anne will have to learn patience, understanding and what it takes to make Green Gables her true home.

Lovingly adapted by Kallie George with beautiful, nostalgic illustrations by Abigail Halpin, Anne Arrives is perfect for new fans of Anne and old.

ISBN-13: 978-1770499300

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Created October 12, 2018. Last updated November 19, 2024.
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House of Dreams: The Life of L.M. Montgomery

House of Dreams: The Life of L.M. Montgomery is a biography by Liz Rosenberg with charming illustrations by Julie Morstad. Published in June 2018 by Candlewick Press, the book is geared towards young adult readers. Rosenberg brings Montgomery's biography to life as a story, fully engaging readers in Montgomery's world. She describes L.M. Montgomery's successes and joys, as well as her anxieties and sorrows.


Here is the description of the book from Candlewick Press:

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maud who adored stories. When she was fourteen years old, Maud wrote in her journal, "I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them." Not only did Maud grow up to own lots of books, she wrote twenty-four of them herself as L. M. Montgomery, the world-renowned author of Anne of Green Gables. For many years, not a great deal was known about Maud’s personal life. Her childhood was spent with strict, undemonstrative grandparents, and her reflections on writing, her lifelong struggles with anxiety and depression, her "year of mad passion," and her difficult married life remained locked away, buried deep within her unpublished personal journals. Through this revealing and deeply moving biography, kindred spirits of all ages who, like Maud, never gave up "the substance of things hoped for" will be captivated anew by the words of this remarkable woman.

An affecting biography of the author of Anne of Green Gables is the first for young readers to include revelations about her last days and to encompass the complexity of a brilliant and sometimes troubled life.

Reviews

"Rosenberg paints a deep, complex portrait of a vibrant, brilliant, yet troubled woman. At the beginning of every chapter, Morstad accompanies these descriptions with Quentin Blake-like ink illustrations that capture the strange mix of whimsy, humor, and solemnity that permeated Maud’s thoughts. Recommend to Anne fans, aspiring writers, or anyone wanting a peek inside the mind of a famous author who constantly fought for success and happiness."
—Booklist

"Rosenberg writes clearly and honestly, making liberal use of Maud's own words, allowing Maud's courage and joy to shine despite her very real problems...A kind, thoughtful, nuanced portrayal of one of the icons of children's literature."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Rosenberg’s comprehensive biography of the author of the beloved Anne of Green Gables series presents a multidimensional portrait of a complicated and conflicted writer...this illuminating and satisfying biography takes on life and depth as Montgomery’s own voice grows more prominent."
—Publishers Weekly

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Created July 11, 2018. Last updated October 24, 2024.
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