L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s)

L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s) was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in April 2018. This book of scholarship examines L.M. Montgomery's appreciation for nature and her depictions of nature in her writings. It was edited by Rita Bode and Jean Mitchell. The volume contains contributions by Catriona Sandilands, Jennifer H. Litster, Nancy Holmes, Rita Bode, Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, Jean Mitchell, Kate Sutherland, Tara K. Parmiter, Paul Keen, Laura M. Robinson, Lesley D. Clement, and Idette Noomé.

Here is the description of the volume from McGill-Queen’s University Press:

A critical study of L.M. Montgomery’s relationship to the material world and the revealing interconnections between nature and culture.

L.M. Montgomery’s writings are replete with enchanting yet subtle and fluid depictions of nature that convey her intense appreciation for the natural world. At a time of ecological crises, intensifying environmental anxiety, and burgeoning eco-critical perspectives, L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s) repositions the Canadian author’s relationship to nature in terms of current environmental criticism across several disciplines, introducing a fresh approach to her life and work.

Drawing on a wide range of Montgomery’s novels as well as her journals, this collection suggests that socio-ecological relationships encompass ideas of reciprocity, affiliation, autonomy, and the capacity for transformation in both the human and more-than-human worlds, and that these ideas are integral to Montgomery’s vision and her literary legacy. Framed by the twin themes of materiality and interrelationships, essays by scholars of literature, law, animal studies, anthropology, and ecology examine place, embodiment, and difference in Montgomery’s works and embrace the multiplicities embedded in the concept of nature.

Through innovative critical approaches, L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s) opens up conversations about humans’ interactions with nature and the material environment.

Reviews

“An emphasis on humanity’s interrelatedness with nature extends the significance of L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s) past Montgomery studies and Canadian literary and cultural studies to engage with the larger issues of how humans’ interactions with nature shape our daily lives and the future of the planet.” Mary Jeanette Moran, Illinois State University

“This collection is significant for its ability to offer unexpected, highly convincing engagements with L. M. Montgomery’s work and disciplines far beyond the scope of traditional literary studies. It provides new perspectives on Montgomery’s oeuvre, while also extending the definition of environmental study and eco-critical analysis in this field.” Sarah Galletly, James Cook University

"The linked themes of understanding and empathy toward the natural world supply a bridge between the literary and the ecological, between the writer and the places she knew. Matter of Nature(s) is a wonderful opportunity to place one of Canada’s most prolific and well-known authors in a wider environmental history." American Review of Canadian Studies

“[L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s)] successfully offers a broad spectrum of insights on the ways in which Montgomery’s fiction and nonfiction address the conceptof interconnectedness between the human and the nonhuman. Each chapter provides a concise and clear analysis that points readers to new perspectives, and the breadth of the collection overall highlights many new avenues of research that remain to be explored.” International Research for Children’s Literature

The book includes the following content and essays:

Introduction: L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s) by Rita Bode and Jean Mitchell

Part One: Nature’s Places

1. Fire, Fantasy, and Futurity: Queer Ecology Visits Silver Bush by Catriona Sandilands
2. The Scotsman, the Scribe, and the Spyglass: Going Back with L.M. Montgomery to Prince Edward Island by Jennifer H. Litster
3. Romantic Novelist as Naturalist: John Foster and the Bird Woman by Nancy Holmes
4. L.M. Montgomery’s “Indoors and Out”: Imagining an Organic Architecture by Rita Bode

Part Two: Nature’s Embodiments

5. Natural Bridge: L.M. Montgomery and the Architecture of Imaginative Landscapes by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly
6. L.M. Montgomery’s Neurasthenia: Embodied Nature and the Matter of Nerves by Jean Mitchell
7. The Education of Emily: Tempering a Force of Nature through Lessons in Law by Kate Sutherland
8. The Spirit of Inquiry: Nature Study and the Sense of Wonder in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne Books by Tara K. Parmiter

Part Three: Nature’s Otherness

9. “No London street Arabs for me”: The Unnatural Orphan in Anne of Green Gables by Paul Keen
10. Kindred Spirits: Kinship and the Nature of Nature in Anne’s House of Dreams and The Blue Castle by Laura M. Robinson
11. The Empathic Poetic Sensibility: Discerning and Embodying Nature’s Secrets by Lesley D. Clement
12. The Nature of the Beast: Pets and People in L.M. Montgomery’s Fiction by Idette Noomé


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Book cover of L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature(s) from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

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Created May 15, 2018. Last updated June 10, 2024.
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Diana of Orchard Slope: A Green Gables Variation

Diana of Orchard Slope: A Green Gables Variation by Libbie Hawker was published by Running Rabbit Editions in December 2017. This work of historical fiction imagines the story of Diana Barry from the Anne of Green Gables series. Hawker explores Diana's relationships, adventures, and deep friendship with Anne Shirley.

Here is the description of the book:

Growing up is never easy. It's even harder when you have a mother who doesn't understand, a nagging sense of self-doubt, and a secret crush you can't confess...not even to your bosom friend.

L. M. Montgomery's timeless classic, Anne of Green Gables, has been reimagined from the perspective of Diana Barry, Anne's best friend and kindred spirit. As Diana and Anne navigate the path from childhood to their grown-up lives, parents, schoolmates, and Anne's well-meaning blunders contrive to keep them apart. But two girls destined for lifelong friendship can't be separated so easily...can they?

With the sweet charm and dreamy atmosphere of Montgomery's original story, Diana of Orchard Slope is sure to delight Anne fans, historical fiction readers, and lovers of the Jane Austen Fanfiction genre.

ISBN-13 978-1947174184

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Book cover of Diana of Orchard Slope: A Green Gables Variation.

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Created January 20, 2018. Last updated November 1, 2024.
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L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: Fire and Dew (2017)

L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: Fire and Dew is a TV movie adaption of L.M. Montgomery's novel that was produced by Breakthrough Entertainment. It is the third TV movie in a trilogy beginning with L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and continuing with L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: The Good Stars.

The movie stars Ella Ballentine as Anne Shirley, Sara Botsford as Marilla Cuthbert, and Martin Sheen as Matthew Cuthbert. It tells the story of how Anne adjusts after she moves away from Green Gables to study to be a teacher.

The 88-minute long TV movie premiered on YTV in Canada on July 1, 2017. The adaptation was directed by John Kent Harrison, and the screenplay was written by Susan Coyne. The film had several executive producers: Nat Abraham, Ramon Estevez, Joan Lambur, Ira Levy, Kate Macdonald Butler (L.M. Montgomery's granddaughter), and Peter Williamson. Its music was composed by Lawrence Shragge.

Here is the film's description:

Anne Shirley heads to school in the city, and Matthew and Marilla face an emptiness in their lives. Overwhelmed by competition - especially from Gilbert Blythe - will Anne find that the dark cloud over her life does have a silver lining?

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Poster for L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: Fire and Dew. © Breakthrough Entertainment

Reference:
Anne of Green Gables: Fire and Dew. IMDb. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6490538/


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Created July 16, 2017. Last updated November 23, 2024.
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After Many Years: Twenty-One "Long Lost" Stories by L.M. Montgomery

After Many Years: Twenty-One "Long Lost" Stories by L.M. Montgomery selected and edited by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christy Woster was published in June 2017 by Nimbus Publishing. The book contains a collection of L.M. Montgomery's short stories that have not been in print since their original publication in periodicals from 1900 to 1939.


Here is the description of the book from Nimbus Publishing:

Although best known for creating the spirited Anne Shirley, L. M. Montgomery had a thriving writing career that included several novels and more than five hundred poems and stories.

This collection brings together rare pieces originally published between 1900 and 1939 that haven’t been in print since their initial periodicals. Collins and Woster have carefully curated a mixture of newly discovered stories that showcase all the charm you expect from Montgomery. With scholarly prefaces and notes for each piece, the book offers readers a rare glimpse into how Montgomery’s writing developed over the years.

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Book cover of After Many Years: Twenty-One "Long Lost" Stories by L.M. Montgomery.

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Created June 30, 2017. Last updated September 4, 2024.
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L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1926-1929

L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1926–1929 edited by Jen Rubio was published by Rock's Mill Press in 2017. 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 sixth volume of L.M. Montgomery's complete journals, Montgomery describes her move to Norval, Ontario and her thoughts on her own life and writing style in a changing world.


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

L.M. Montgomery's relocation in 1926 to Norval, Ontario, a village of striking natural beauty located on the Credit River, furnished her life with a bright new texture. She had lived 15 years in the small farming community of Leaskdale, Ontario, where she experienced her full share of life's highs and lows. Although Montgomery remained busy in Norval, working almost incessantly as an author, mother, and minister's wife, she found that her new home had its own special, and often very pleasing, flavour. Her connection to the "spirit of place" enabled her to record moments of peace and reflection in the "Garden of the Wild Gods," as she described it -- as well as the occasional "bark at the moon." Aware that the world was changing and that her own style of writing was not always sufficiently "edgy," Montgomery's commentary on the transformation of the world around her is infused with characteristic wit and insight ("The mills of the gods grind slowly but they do pulverize," she notes wryly in a journal entry of May 3, 1929). As a social history of a rapidly changing Canada, Montgomery's journals -- presented here complete and unexpurgated for the first time -- offer fascinating insights. Her thoughts on her own life are also illuminating. This new edition includes more than 200 of Montgomery's own photographs, many never before published. Editor Jen Rubio has provided hundreds of annotations, all original to this edition, as well as a new introduction to the volume.

Paperback, 344 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1-77244-080-5

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Book cover of L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1926–1929.

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Created May 30, 2017. Last updated August 23, 2024.
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L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1918-1921

L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1918–1921 edited by Jen Rubio was published by Rock's Mill Press in 2017. 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. This fourth volume of L.M. Montgomery's complete journals features an introduction by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly.


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

"This is the journal of a consummate story teller. War, death, madness, fury, despair, sheer grit, laughter, love, and exquisitely realized beauty and joy: all are rendered through the eye and 'I' of an artist for whom her journal was not so much a place as an act of engaging—a companioning of and questioning of herself. I suggest that this volume, covering 1918 to 1921, is one of the most important works in Montgomery’s entire writing career. Here we see her personal world shattered, and we see her consciously remaking it." ---From the Introduction by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly

"Have you heard the news?" L.M. Montgomery records asking her husband Ewan as he arrived home on October 6, 1918, “hoping like a child that he hadn’t, so that I would be the first to tell him." World War I would soon end with an armistice. Montgomery’s words reflect the relief felt across the world as the war drew to a close. Her own life, however, did not relax as she might have hoped; rather, a series of unexpected events were about to unfold. Elizabeth Rollins Epperly observes in her introduction that Montgomery’s journals are filled with moments of joy "suspended in a larger, often darker, story." Here we read about Montgomery’s experiences with death, the spirit world, and insanity, among others. Her husband’s mental illness often makes for hair-raising reading. Available here for the first time is the complete record of Montgomery’s life, a spellbinding account of the small and the large, the tragic and the humorous. Over 180 of Montgomery’s own photographs are included, many never before published. In addition to Professor Epperly’s fascinating introduction, this edition contains more than 400 notes providing a wealth of historical and literary background.

Paperback, 396 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1-77244-066-9

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Book cover of L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1918–1921.

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Created May 20, 2017. Last updated August 23, 2024.
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Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery

Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery is a young adult book by Melanie J. Fishbane based on L.M. Montgomery's teenage years. Published by Penguin Teen Canada in April 2017, the book is 400 pages long. It is a work of historical fiction that draws from historical documents about L.M. Montgomery's life and Canadian history.

Here is the book's description from Penguin Teen Canada:

For the first time ever, a young adult novel about the teen years of L.M. Montgomery, the author who brought us ANNE OF GREEN GABLES.

Fourteen-year-old Lucy Maud Montgomery — Maud to her friends — has a dream: to go to college and become a writer, just like her idol, Louisa May Alcott. But living with her grandparents on Prince Edward Island, she worries that this dream will never come true. Her grandfather has strong opinions about a woman’s place in the world, and they do not include spending good money on college. Luckily, she has a teacher to believe in her and good friends to support her, including Nate, the Baptist minister’s stepson and the smartest boy in the class. If only he weren’t a Baptist; her Presbyterian grandparents would never approve. Then again, Maud isn’t sure she wants to settle down with a boy — her dreams of being a writer are much more important.

But life changes for Maud when she goes out West to live with her father and his new wife and daughter. Her new home offers her another chance at love, as well as attending school, but tensions increase as Maud discovers her stepmother’s plans for her, which threaten Maud’s future — and her happiness forever.

Reviews

"Maud will be best appreciated by L.M. Montgomery aficionados, those for whom Anne, Emily, and the journals will never be enough."
—Kerry Clare, Quill & Quire

"[T]here's nothing dated about the relentless lack of understanding and warmth [Maud] experienced in her family life, something Fishbane conveys with aplomb."
—The Toronto Star

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Book cover of Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery.

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Created May 15, 2017. Last updated September 17, 2024.
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L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: The Good Stars (2017)

L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: The Good Stars is a TV movie adaption of L.M. Montgomery's novel that was produced by Breakthrough Entertainment. It is the sequel to L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables. The movie stars Ella Ballentine as Anne Shirley, Sara Botsford as Marilla Cuthbert, and Martin Sheen as Matthew Cuthbert. The adaptation continues the story of thirteen-year-old Anne Shirley who tries to be sensible, but ends up having mishaps.

The 88-minute long film was written and directed by John Kent Harrison and premiered on YTV in Canada on February 20, 2017. The adaptation had several executive producers: Nat Abraham, Ramon Estevez, Joan Lambur, Ira Levy, Kate Macdonald Butler (L.M. Montgomery's granddaughter), Michael McGuigan, and Peter Williamson. Its music was composed by Lawrence Shragge.

The movie is the second in a trilogy, and is preceded by L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and followed by L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: Fire and Dew.

Here is the film's description:

Anne Shirley is thirteen years old and finds that life in Avonlea is never simple. Torn between her free-spirited nature and her own perceived need to become sensible, Anne finds that the journey toward her goal is fraught with confusion and more than a few unfortunate yet amusing mishaps.

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Poster for L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: The Good Stars. © Breakthrough Entertainment

Reference:
L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables: The Good Stars. IMDb. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6360810/

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Created March 10, 2017. Last updated November 23, 2024.
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