Product Description

Already a bestseller in Canada, this book will fascinate the legions of devoted readers of Anne of Green Gables and Montgomery's other Anne books. Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) kept extensive journals for most of her life, beginning them in 1889 when she was fourteen and continuing them until shortly before her death. Spontaneous and frank, they are unusual for their narrative interest: Montgomery's gifts as a storyteller are as much in evidence here as in her novels. This first volume takes her to 1910, the year before her marriage, and culminates with the publication of Anne of Green Gables. The fascinating journals collected here offer the reader not just a unique social history, but also the privilege of viewing closely the life of a remarkable woman.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #325426 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

Review

"The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery have given me enormous pleasure....These diaries possess the crisp, honest, unsparing voice of a real woman who fought all her life to bring her two selves together: the celebrated writer and the unloved child."--Carol Shields, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Stone Diaries, writing in The Boston Sunday Globe

About the Author
Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston are the editors of all five volumes of Montgomery's journals, co-founders and editors of the journal CCL: Canadian Children's Literature, and co-authors of Writing a Life: L.M. Montgomery. They have collaborated on writing and editing projects since 1975 at the University of Guelph, where Mary Rubio is Professor of English and Elizabeth Waterston is Professor Emeritus.

Customer Reviews

Delightful!
I picked up this volume in a bed and breafast on Prince Edward Island a few years ago. I ran out and bought it while I was there and ordered the next 2 volumes soon after. I've been a huge "Anne" fan since I was 12 years old. Montgomery's journals make the author seem as alive as the fictional character she created. They offer insight into the author's life, her work, and the time in which she lived. I was surprised about how frank she is about her own love life and about her feelings for "Anne." A great read which may inspire you to start a journal of your own.

Extremely memorable and delightful experience to read this
I am 40 years old and have kept a journal for 29 years, therefore, the journal format fascinates me. I adore Lucy Maud Montgomery's works and in 1992, I made a trip to Prince Edward Island to visit all her old haunts with my daugter and my girlfriend and her daughter. I purchased the first two journals while there. If you, dear reader, would like to know what went on in Lucy's (called Maud by everyone) mind and heart from the tender, turbulent age of 14 until her mid-thirties, I highly recommend this book. It will transport you to a simpler time, an era where people read more, pondered in greater depth, made visiting one another a social art. There was no television, computers, internet and telephones had just come into existence. The automobile was invented during these years. The book is fascinating in a historical realm as well as entering Maud's mind and gaining a perspective on her outlook of life and those around her. I enjoyed this book thoroughly and anyone who is a fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery will relish this book and treasure it greatly. It added dimension to my life because people have always intriged me and what their thoughts are, and where they get inspiration to write about their ideas. By reading this book, it added music and dimension to my soul. She freely discusses her love life and her miseries and joys. Read it! You will never forget it. The following journals that were published were just as compelling to read. I own them all in my personal library. My thanks to the publishers: Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston.

Intimate look into the thoughts of the creator of Anne
L.M. Montgomery wrote at the time when journalists were clamouring for details of the life of the author of the bestselling 'Anne of Green Gables', that she would give them no really personal information about herself - that was only to be found in her private journals.

It is very interesting for a lover of the 'Anne' books to read of L.M. Montgomery's life in that one sees flashes of incidents or a turn of expression that reveals her to be the creator of Anne.

This first part of her journals traverses L.M. Montgomery's young girlhood, in which she goes to a school which is like the school Anne goes to, and to college where she takes First Class, as Anne does, teaches as Anne eventually does as well. It is also interesting that L.M. Montgomery herself faced the prospect of marrying the wrong man, as her first engagement was a disaster - Anne later reels back from commiting herself to the wrong person.

But the journals are far more complex than that - L.M. Montgomery's deeper passions and even sexual desires are alluded at - and this has no place in the 'Anne' books. She is also unhappy for a lot of the time. She herself said it was a wonder that the difficulties in her own life did not come through in her writing - but she was happy as she wanted to give only optimism and joy through her books.

The journals give an insight to the conflicts within L.M. Montgomery because of her conservative, pragmatic pride warring with her shockingly powerful passions and emotions.