Product Description

A collection of stories set on Anne Shirley's beloved Prince Edward Island features the tale of the man who is eager to keep his brother out of the clutches of a woman he considers dangerous and then falls for her himself. Reprint.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81678 in Books
• Published on: 1993-01-01
• Released on: 1993-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 416 pages

From the Publisher
For Anne and Gilbert Blythe, life in a small village is never dull because of all the entertaining gossip, and what strange and funny tales they hear: about the mischievous twins whose dearest wish comes true when they meet up with a bored and haunted millionaire; or clever Penelope Craig, who considers herself an expert on children -- until she adopts a boy of her own; or Timothy Randebush, a man so eager to keep his brother out of the clutches of a dangerous woman that he spirits her away -- only to fall prey to her charms himself. Filled with unexpected surprises, laughter, and tears, here are fourteen of the Blythes' favorite tales.

From the Inside Flap
For Anne and Gilbert Blythe, life in a small village is never dull because of all the entertaining gossip, and what strange and funny tales they hear: about the mischievous twins whose dearest wish comes true when they meet up with a bored and haunted millionaire; or clever Penelope Craig, who considers herself an expert on children -- until she adopts a boy of her own; or Timothy Randebush, a man so eager to keep his brother out of the clutches of a dangerous woman that he spirits her away -- only to fall prey to her charms himself. Filled with unexpected surprises, laughter, and tears, here are fourteen of the Blythes' favorite tales.

Customer Reviews

The Blythes are Quoted . . . A Lot!
The Road to Yesterday was the last collection of tales that L.M.Montgomery wrote before she died. Her son, Stuart McDonald, found the manuscript among her papers, and had it published post-humously. Originally, Montgomery had called the work The Blythes Are Quoted, and had framed the tales with accounts of the Blythes at home listening to their favorite stories. This frame-narrative was removed, and the stories were rearranged into their current order.

In many ways, The Road to Yesterday displays both the strengths and the weaknesses of Montgomery's work. It shows her genuine ability to tell stories of the community in the voice of the community. Her narrative voice is that of the neighborhood gossip, who doesn't wish ill on her neighbours but who delights nonetheless in their poor decisions, their misfortunes and their downfalls as an interesting tale. It also shows her command of irony and satire, two qualities with which she is seldom credited. At the same time, though, it reveals how she could never quite break away from the narrative patterns of magazine literature with its improbable coincidences and inevitable happy endings. Most of the stories revolved around love and romance, and tend to be rather implausibly constructed. For instance, "Fool's Errand" tells of a man who becomes lonely after his mother dies and remembers a promise he made long ago to a young girl to return and marry her, while "The Pot and the Kettle" is the tale of a young woman who has to marry a certain man to gain an inheritance and who refuses to do so, only to fall in love with him when he courts her by another name.

Only two stories in the collection are genuinely startling and unconventional. "A Commonplace Woman" is striking in its refusal to conform to generally-accepted standards of morality. It is a savage satire of the hypocrisy surrounding old age and death in a family, a feminist polemic about women's position in society, and a carefully observed character sketch of a woman who feels no remorse or shame about having a child out of marriage or committing murder but merely proclaims that she has lived. Similarly, "Here Comes the Bride" is a gently pointed portrait built up from multiple perspectives of what a village really thinks of a wedding.

Such stories show what Montgomery could have achieved if she had been given the chance. Unfortunately, she was a victim of Anne of Green Gables' early, unprecedented success, which led to her being pigeonholed as the author of rather sentimental tales of girlhood, and which she ultimately came to resent. Some of this bitterness seems to have seeped into The Road to Yesterday. Despite not being its major protagonists, the Blythes are a major presence throughout the novel as friends, neighbours or guests, and they are the subject of much scrutiny by the village. (Montgomery would have been familiar with the feeling, as the wife of a minister who was prone to religious mania and who had to keep up the front of a happy, perfect life for the sake of his parishoners.) People in the tales frequently comment on how tired they are of hearing about the Blythes or having them quoted at them, which surely suggests Montgomery's own irritation at having been linked with Anne throughout her life. Alternatively, the Blythes are praised so often and so profusely that it becomes absurd, which may be intended to parody the public's adulation of Anne.

As a final note, Benjamin Lefevbre is working on a critical edition of The Blythes Are Quoted for publication. This edition will restore the frame narrative and put the stories into their original order. It will be interesting to Montgomery's original intentions for the piece, and to see whether and how the feel of the collection changes.

Great book
While this is not my most favorite of LMM's short story collections, it does have very good stories. It offers a few extra tidbits about the Blythes, although I agree with others, that it seems a bit forced at times. However, I want to make a point of saying that this book includes what I think may be LMM's most powerful short story: A Commonplace Woman. That story alone is worth buying the book. It is an incredible tale of the life of one woman, who everyone thinks is simply an old boring woman, who never did anything of interest in her life. As she lies in a bed upstairs dying, her relatives sit around downstairs waiting for her to die and talking about how boring her life was. Meanwhile, the woman, Ursula, is remembering her life and the one secret that made her and her life extremely rewarding and interesting, and if anyone had known of it, they would change their opinion of her in a hurry. I don't want to give away what the secret is, but, believe me, it's a wonderful story, easily the most beautiful, sad, thought-provoking and rich of LMM's short stories, once you get past the somewhat long- winded beginning! Besides this one, I highly recommend all of Lucy Montgomery's books, they are all excellent. I re-read most of mine very year!

Road To Yesterday is look into the world around Anne.
The Road to Yesterday contains many many wonderful stories about Glen St. Mary, where Anne and Gilbert and their children live. It gives a bit of insight into the Blythe family from the townspeople, as well as a few tidbits as to what became of the Blythe children (and even a little bit about the grandchildren) after the book Rilla of Ingleside. This is a wonderful book.