The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery

Greetings!

My Favorite Series

I would have to say my favorite all time series of books would be the selected  journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery. She’s the author of Anne of Green Gables and many other stories.

L.M. Montgomery kept a handwritten diary detailing the picturesque island of Prince Edward Island where she was raised. She also kept track of many events through her life including her love of writing, being raised by strict grandparents, the publication of Anne of Green Gables, the first real love of her life, her marriage to a reverend, the birth of her sons, her husband’s mental illness, her depression and so much more.

Here are snippets from the publisher for this series of diaries:

Volume 1 – 1889-1910

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 autobiographical content will intrigue every dedicated fan of the Anne books. But the Montgomery journals are especially interesting because they provide a unique social history and the privilege of viewing closely the life of a remarkable woman.

Volume 2 – 1910 – 1921

An instant best-seller in Canada, the first volume of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery recorded the growing power and imagination of one of the world’s best-loved writers, the author of the classic novel for children, Anne of Green Gables. The London Free Press hailed it as “pure gold, the deeply felt, finely evocative rendering of years both heartbreakingly sad and splendidly triumphant,” and The Montreal Gazette termed it “one of the most haunting documents in Canadian literary history.”
The second volume promises to be equally intriguing and powerful. Ranging from 1910 to 1921, Montgomery’s revealing journal documents a time of great upheaval, both in her life and in the world around her. Here she records her thoughts about the death of her rigid, intolerant grandmother, who had ruled her life so strickly…her troubled marriage to the Reverend Ewan Macdonald…the move from her beloved Prince Edward Island to a small Ontario town…her shocked reaction to the First World War…and the rewards and difficulties of being a noted writer.
Spontaneous and frank, these journals are unusual for their narrative interest: Montgomery’s gifts as a storyteller are as much in evidence here as in her novels. The autobiographical content will intrigue every dedicated fan of Anne of Green Gables and the other Anne books, but the Montgomery journals are also interesting because they provide a unique social history and the privilege of viewing closely the life of a remarkable woman.

Volume 3 – 1921 – 1929

Ranging from 1921-1929, this revealing journal documents her efforts to juggle the demands of motherhood, parish obligations, indifferent household help, grief at the loss of older friends and family–everyday struggles to balance a woman’s social and domestic duties. Here she writes of the triumphs and trials of being a best-selling author: growing fame; the successful midwifery of her new heroines Emily and Marigold and a more adult novel, The Blue Castle; the struggle to allocate time for correspondence with publishers, fans, friends–and to actually write. We trace the happy conclusion of her lawsuits against an unscrupulous publisher and the disappointing outcome of a lawsuit arising in a minor automobile accident. And we learn of her personal worries: Ewan Macdonalds’s envy of his wife’s publishing and social success; the dark shadow cast by his attacks of melancholia; and her fear that her sons might evince similar tendencies.
In these years, Lucy Maud Montgomery turned more and more to her journals to record her insights, opinions, and epiphanies. These journals will not only intrigue every fan of Anne of Green Gables and the other Anne books, but will also provide an intimate look at life as portrayed by this remarkable writer.

Volume 4 –  1929-1935

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942)-whose Anne of Green Gables and many other novels are loved by readers around the world-kept extensive journals for most of her life. The fourth volume of the immensely success Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery covers the years from 1929 to 1935, a tumultuous period in the writer’s life. The stock market crash, a drop in royalties from her many books, the need to provide her two sons with a university education, her husband’s modest church salary often in arrears, and the fact that many loans she had made to friends and family were not repaid, placed Montgomery in the position where she had to type her own manuscripts for the first time since 1910. She also had to face personal crises as her sons’ university results were extremely disappointing and her husband suffered a total nervous breakdown. Yet this was not a period without joy as well-the volume opens with travels to Prince Edward Island and western Canada and ends with her looking forward with great excitement to a new life in Toronto.

Volume 5 – 1935-1942

The final volume of the immensely successful The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery covers the years 1935 to 1942, the year of Montgomery’s death. No longer dwelling in a farm community or a small rural village, Lucy Maud Montgomery explored life in downtown Toronto. Here she experienced the cultural riches the city had to offer while finding friendship and neighborliness in the suburb of Swansea. The journal chronicles her hopes and satisfaction with her new home and neighborhood, but also her struggles with her own and her husband’s recurring bouts of depression, her worries about her sons’ academic performance, and her thoughts on the world events during these years. The final volume in the series offers an intimate eyewitness account of life in a growing city, a friendly neighborhood, a changing world, and of a troubling family dynamic from 1935 to 1942, all recorded with Lucy Maud Montgomery’s sharp eye and characteristic wit.

Above picture – Megan Follows acts as Anne of Green Gables in the television mini series “Anne of Green Gables”.

Note from me:

There is a lot to read in each of these journals. I picked them up in hardcover format on a visit to Prince Edward Island back in the early 1990’s. If you want to get your own copies they are available on Amazon etc…

Happy Reading!

jan