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L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals #2
The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911
L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942) had begun keeping a private journal before she turned fifteen. From 1918 onward, she had carefully copied out her entries. She intended this detailed life record to be published posthumously. Montgomery's long-hidden version of her early life emerged as the bestselling Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volumes I-V, first published in 1985. Twenty-five years ago, it seemed prudent to offer a tightly organized book with a strong central narrative, but this decision meant setting aside many entries on her personal tastes, her effusions over landscape, and her increasing bouts of depression.
L.M. Montgomery's record of her life is published now for the first time without abridgement. 'The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The P.E.I. Years, 1889-1900' was published in early 2012 to much acclaim. This second book, covering the years 1901 to 1911, continues to provide a more comprehensive portrait of Montgomery's life in PEI than has ever been available before.
This publication covers Montgomery's early adult years, including her work as a newspaper editor in Halifax, Nova Scotia; her publishing career taking flight; the death of her grandmother; and her forthcoming marriage to a local clergyman. It also documents her own reflections on writing, her increasingly problematic mood swings and feelings of isolation, and her changing relationship with the world around her, particularly that of Prince Edward Island.
This new edition recreates the format Montgomery herself devised. Over 300 of her photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, and professional portraits are reproduced, all with Montgomery's original placement and captions.
L.M. Montgomery's record of her life is published now for the first time without abridgement. 'The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The P.E.I. Years, 1889-1900' was published in early 2012 to much acclaim. This second book, covering the years 1901 to 1911, continues to provide a more comprehensive portrait of Montgomery's life in PEI than has ever been available before.
This publication covers Montgomery's early adult years, including her work as a newspaper editor in Halifax, Nova Scotia; her publishing career taking flight; the death of her grandmother; and her forthcoming marriage to a local clergyman. It also documents her own reflections on writing, her increasingly problematic mood swings and feelings of isolation, and her changing relationship with the world around her, particularly that of Prince Edward Island.
This new edition recreates the format Montgomery herself devised. Over 300 of her photographs, newspaper clippings, postcards, and professional portraits are reproduced, all with Montgomery's original placement and captions.
434 pages, Hardcover
First published May 30, 2013
8 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
L.M. Montgomery
1,863 books13.2k followersLucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 7, 2020
Well, this was an interesting read.
First off, this set of journals follows LMM (or Maud as she preferred to be called) from ages twenty-six to thirty seven. We see more of Maud the person, as opposed to Maud the girl (if you read the first set of journals), or Maud the author (if you've read any of her books published in the last 100 years). It's well known fact that in later life Maud struggled severely with depression and that depression is shown in these journal entries. She has a lot of "dark nights/days/weeks" that leave her both physically and mentally exhausted. Having no one to lean on (a bit I'll get to later) Maud instead writes it down in her journal making it especially hard for me to get through one year when she was in the midst of great suffering and her journal writing was her only reprieve. While the first set of journals (1889-1900) was light hearted and full of friends, engagements and frivolity, this set was more somber in tone, reflecting her inner struggles and demons. It's not a bad thing, I still enjoy her entries immensely but it definitely made for a much harder read and one that I had to be in the right headspace for depending on the content.
Maud had great writing success - Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Kilmeny of the Orchard and The Story Girl were all published during these years. Anne (as she refers to her book in her entries) in particular was a immediate success putting both Maud and her little town of Cavendish on the map. Suddenly Maud had money coming in (more than she ever had before), invitations to meet famous people, letters from all over the world telling her how much this one little red headed orphan girl meant to them etc. But though fame came to her, not all was well. Maud lived with her elderly grandmother who was very strict about everything, with no true friends around, no social life outside of church and choir, no ability to use any of her money to make her life better for both herself and her grandmother. You get more details as you read this but in essence, she felt alone with no one to help ease her burdens. It was not a pleasant existence and one I personally think led Maud into matrimony (she gets married in 1911). She just didn't want to be alone and after reading her innermost thoughts, wishes and worries, I do not blame her for that choice.
My only quibble with this book was I felt that some entries were tailor made to an audience. Like Maud wrote them specifically for others, not for herself. It's a weird feeling, especially when reading someone's private journal entries and it could be just me but its a well know fact that she intended her journals to be released to the public after her death. It is noted in one of the footnotes that Maud started typing up her handwritten journals in her forties. So a couple of her entries - like when she does twenty pages of her family history or five pages of what parts of Anne come from her life and what part didn't- really stood out to me. Again, it could be just me but it made me wonder how many of her entries are filtered through the lens that others will be reading them and how many are unedited from the time they were first written down. I don't think that question will ever be answered.
But this is still worth the read! I really like the way the hardback is bound (the pages fall open so easily), the typecast is easy to read and I enjoy all the accompanying pictures (so many of Lover's Lane!) along with the footnotes on almost every page explaining people/places/books, etc.. The editors did a really good job with this edition. I plan on reading the next set of journals if I can get it through Inter-Library Loan again (this book came from the RSC-Waldo Library at Western Michigan University, thank you library!). I'm interested to read about the next stages of Maud's life, as a wife and mother.
First off, this set of journals follows LMM (or Maud as she preferred to be called) from ages twenty-six to thirty seven. We see more of Maud the person, as opposed to Maud the girl (if you read the first set of journals), or Maud the author (if you've read any of her books published in the last 100 years). It's well known fact that in later life Maud struggled severely with depression and that depression is shown in these journal entries. She has a lot of "dark nights/days/weeks" that leave her both physically and mentally exhausted. Having no one to lean on (a bit I'll get to later) Maud instead writes it down in her journal making it especially hard for me to get through one year when she was in the midst of great suffering and her journal writing was her only reprieve. While the first set of journals (1889-1900) was light hearted and full of friends, engagements and frivolity, this set was more somber in tone, reflecting her inner struggles and demons. It's not a bad thing, I still enjoy her entries immensely but it definitely made for a much harder read and one that I had to be in the right headspace for depending on the content.
Maud had great writing success - Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Kilmeny of the Orchard and The Story Girl were all published during these years. Anne (as she refers to her book in her entries) in particular was a immediate success putting both Maud and her little town of Cavendish on the map. Suddenly Maud had money coming in (more than she ever had before), invitations to meet famous people, letters from all over the world telling her how much this one little red headed orphan girl meant to them etc. But though fame came to her, not all was well. Maud lived with her elderly grandmother who was very strict about everything, with no true friends around, no social life outside of church and choir, no ability to use any of her money to make her life better for both herself and her grandmother. You get more details as you read this but in essence, she felt alone with no one to help ease her burdens. It was not a pleasant existence and one I personally think led Maud into matrimony (she gets married in 1911). She just didn't want to be alone and after reading her innermost thoughts, wishes and worries, I do not blame her for that choice.
My only quibble with this book was I felt that some entries were tailor made to an audience. Like Maud wrote them specifically for others, not for herself. It's a weird feeling, especially when reading someone's private journal entries and it could be just me but its a well know fact that she intended her journals to be released to the public after her death. It is noted in one of the footnotes that Maud started typing up her handwritten journals in her forties. So a couple of her entries - like when she does twenty pages of her family history or five pages of what parts of Anne come from her life and what part didn't- really stood out to me. Again, it could be just me but it made me wonder how many of her entries are filtered through the lens that others will be reading them and how many are unedited from the time they were first written down. I don't think that question will ever be answered.
But this is still worth the read! I really like the way the hardback is bound (the pages fall open so easily), the typecast is easy to read and I enjoy all the accompanying pictures (so many of Lover's Lane!) along with the footnotes on almost every page explaining people/places/books, etc.. The editors did a really good job with this edition. I plan on reading the next set of journals if I can get it through Inter-Library Loan again (this book came from the RSC-Waldo Library at Western Michigan University, thank you library!). I'm interested to read about the next stages of Maud's life, as a wife and mother.
January 26, 2025
Amazing! Montgomery’s writing in her journals is better than her Anne books. I never thought to pick up and read Montgomery’s journals until I visited her house in Leaskdale, ON (now a museum site preserved by the Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario – Maud lived in Ontario for most of her life after marrying Ewan MacDonald who had a parish posting there). Her entries capture the lyric descriptions of nature that we typically associate with fictional Anne’s imagination as well as communicate Montgomery’s deep sadness and solitude living alone with her grandmother in PEI.
I particularly enjoyed the fall she worked in Halifax for the local newspaper and her anecdotes of days in the newsroom and her Saturday ritual (once the pages were printed, her busy workload was done of the week) to buy a bag of caramels and hole up in her bed at the boarding house to read all afternoon.
Montgomery rewrote her journals thinking they might someday be published. This fact has led to the academic argument that the journals have been reworked and crafted to present a certain image of Maud that the author wanted the public to know. Although I do not deny the limitation of discovering an author through their writing, particularly when we know she is writing to an audience, I have to discredit this argument. Her journals do not censor her contempt for fellow neighbours and childhood friends (I wonder what they would think reading that Maud, now grown up but still obliged to pay social visits, feels that their friendship of girlhood is now dead!). They do not censor her depressed moods and solitude as she becomes a famous author by her own hard-work and perseverance with no family encouragement or personal support network to share her feelings. They do not censor the joy she finds in nature, revisiting her favourite haunts of Cavendish, PEI. Montgomery even admits herself that her journals are distorted – realizing her diary is full of gloomy entries in the winter months. Although the entries leave out a lot – her process of writing Anne, her courtship with Ewan - she is not trying to pull the wool over readers’ eyes. A reader simply has to look at the spacing in the entry dates to realize that the journal entries are not a full picture of her life.
Rubio has compiled and published all of Montgomery’s journals, from her PEI days to her years in Ontario. I highly recommend the first 200 pages of this journal. The later half is less interesting, as Montgomery becomes a famous author with the publication and global success of Anne, she writes less about her personal experiences and gives us lists of places that inspired and did not inspire the Anne books and retells historical stories of PEI, as if she knows her journals will be of interest to historical documentation. It is Maud’s experiences that I find more interesting, and her way with words and ability to express herself is her true genius.
I particularly enjoyed the fall she worked in Halifax for the local newspaper and her anecdotes of days in the newsroom and her Saturday ritual (once the pages were printed, her busy workload was done of the week) to buy a bag of caramels and hole up in her bed at the boarding house to read all afternoon.
Montgomery rewrote her journals thinking they might someday be published. This fact has led to the academic argument that the journals have been reworked and crafted to present a certain image of Maud that the author wanted the public to know. Although I do not deny the limitation of discovering an author through their writing, particularly when we know she is writing to an audience, I have to discredit this argument. Her journals do not censor her contempt for fellow neighbours and childhood friends (I wonder what they would think reading that Maud, now grown up but still obliged to pay social visits, feels that their friendship of girlhood is now dead!). They do not censor her depressed moods and solitude as she becomes a famous author by her own hard-work and perseverance with no family encouragement or personal support network to share her feelings. They do not censor the joy she finds in nature, revisiting her favourite haunts of Cavendish, PEI. Montgomery even admits herself that her journals are distorted – realizing her diary is full of gloomy entries in the winter months. Although the entries leave out a lot – her process of writing Anne, her courtship with Ewan - she is not trying to pull the wool over readers’ eyes. A reader simply has to look at the spacing in the entry dates to realize that the journal entries are not a full picture of her life.
Rubio has compiled and published all of Montgomery’s journals, from her PEI days to her years in Ontario. I highly recommend the first 200 pages of this journal. The later half is less interesting, as Montgomery becomes a famous author with the publication and global success of Anne, she writes less about her personal experiences and gives us lists of places that inspired and did not inspire the Anne books and retells historical stories of PEI, as if she knows her journals will be of interest to historical documentation. It is Maud’s experiences that I find more interesting, and her way with words and ability to express herself is her true genius.
August 5, 2024
While the end had some things I found confusing and out of order, I loved reading about the development of the Anne series and other stories. LMM is my kindred spirit.
January 24, 2020
I'm not great at reviews-- here's some feels:
This gives such an insightful glimpse into L.M Montgomery's life -- and internal life. It was not necessarily an easy or light read, and took me nearly three weeks to finish (though I admit I was reading several other books at the same time.) Maud's struggles with depression are evident in these pages, and who likes to hear that a new bride, sitting next to her new husband, is "as unhappy as [she has] ever been"? If you're more than a casual fan of LMM's writings, though, you'll appreciate the detail she puts into her entries as she relates even her hardest struggles. There is a certain level of intimacy you can't gain unless you walk with someone through the valley (if you don't have an enneagram 4 friend, I highly recommend you get one; they are excellent at this!) and I love her novels all the more after reading this, in just the way I appreciate the summer's warmth after a hard winter.
I feel like before I read this, Maud was just an admired author. Now she's a /friend/.
This gives such an insightful glimpse into L.M Montgomery's life -- and internal life. It was not necessarily an easy or light read, and took me nearly three weeks to finish (though I admit I was reading several other books at the same time.) Maud's struggles with depression are evident in these pages, and who likes to hear that a new bride, sitting next to her new husband, is "as unhappy as [she has] ever been"? If you're more than a casual fan of LMM's writings, though, you'll appreciate the detail she puts into her entries as she relates even her hardest struggles. There is a certain level of intimacy you can't gain unless you walk with someone through the valley (if you don't have an enneagram 4 friend, I highly recommend you get one; they are excellent at this!) and I love her novels all the more after reading this, in just the way I appreciate the summer's warmth after a hard winter.
I feel like before I read this, Maud was just an admired author. Now she's a /friend/.
May 11, 2018
I own a set of the revised journals, they are all fascinating reading, so I was excited to read the complete journals when I heard they were going to be released. A must read for any fan of LM Montgomery!
March 29, 2020
Montgomery's journals continue to be utterly fascinating. This volume covers her engagement to Ewan and her early success through the publication of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Kilmeny of the Orchard, and The Story Girl. It's so interesting to see how many things from her life got woven into the novels. Her depressions, struggles with anxiety and the weight of caring for her grandmother adds fascinating layers to a woman known for her cheerful, plucky heroines. I'm so glad I'm taking the time to read these.
July 3, 2018
I feel like I deserve an award for finishing this. Even as a pretty big fan of LMM, I had a hard time slogging through page after page and year after year of her depression and sadness. It’s hard to believe she was writing such wonderful books while feeling so depressed, lonely, sad, and physically ill as well. It’s also fascinating that she didn’t put any details in her journal at all about her extended courtship and engagement. There’s nothing at all about her feelings for him.
July 22, 2020
One of my top two books I've read this year. I could read it over, and over again.
December 15, 2024
I enjoyed most of it but had to eventually skip the winter months as LMM was clearly suffering from seasonal affective disorder and those entries were too depressing to read.
November 1, 2015
LMM's journals are almost better than her many novels; they are really social histories. The abridged journals which came out in the 1980s & 1990s were a fascinating if edited glimpse into her world, but the recent publications of the complete journals make it quite worthwhile to go back and re-read her diaries.
August 14, 2018
I cannot get over how much I am absolutely smitten with L.M. Montgomery's life and works. This collection of her journals from 1901-1911 was perfect for me to read while camping in P.E.I. I love her all the more for her "humanness" - it surprised me how much I could relate to her sentiments about people and life; how real her dark, closeted struggles with depression and mental health were, and the extent to which I could relate to her spirit.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews