The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900 edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston was published by the Oxford University Press in 2012. 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.
Here is the description of the volume from the Oxford University Press:
The first edition of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery was published in the 1980s, with fifty percent of the material removed to save space, as well as to reflect a quaint, marketable vision of small-town Canada. The editors were instructed to excise anything that was not upbeat or did not "move the story along." The resulting account of Montgomery's youthful life in Prince Edward Island depicts a fun-loving, simple country girl. The unabridged journal, however, reveals something quite different.
We now know that Montgomery was anything but simple. She was often anxious, bitter, dark, and political, although always able to see herself and her surroundings with a deep ironic - and often comical - twist. The unabridged version shows her using writing as a means of managing her own mood swings, as well as her increasing dependency on journal keeping, and her ambition as a writer. She was also exceedingly interested in men. We see here a more developed portrait of what she herself described as a "very uncomfortable blend" between "the passionate Montgomery blood and the Puritan Macneill conscience." Full details describe the impassioned events during which she describes becoming a "new creature," "born of sorrow ... and hopeless longing."
In addition, this unedited account is a striking visual record, containing 226 of her own photographs placed as she placed them in her journals, as well as newspaper clippings, postcards, and professional portraits, all with her own original captions. New notes and a new introduction give key context to the history, the people, and the culture in the text. A new preface by Michael Bliss draws some unexpected connections.
The full PEI journals tells a fascinating tale of a young woman coming of age in a bygone rural Canada, a tale far thornier and far more compelling than the first selected edition could disclose.
Review
"There have been selected versions of Montgomery’s early personal records but this edition provides a stronger sense of the writer’s dark moods as a young adult, her frequent feelings of loneliness and the proto-feminism that underlies her literary ambitions. Most vividly it expresses Montgomery’s feistiness, a trait that characterizes her most famous character, Anne."
-Jennifer Hunter, Toronto Star (full review)
Image credit:
Book cover of The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900.
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Created Aug 21, 2012. Last updated August 22, 2024.
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