LMM Bookshelf Project

Pages

: Fires of Driftwood; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., Isabel Eccelstone Mackay (1875-1928) was once a well-known author of poetry and prose. Her life and career ran very much parallel to Montgomery's. She, too, was raised in a small largely Scottish town, her ambition to write was evident from an early age, she published first in school papers and later in magazines from around North America, and wrote for a mixed audience of children and adults. She was founding president of the Vancouver chapter of the Canadian Women's Press Club (and eventual friend of E. Pauline Johnson and Marjorie Pickthall). Mackay heard Montgomery speak at a CWPC event in June of 1926, and the two were often listed together in various features of Canadian women writers in the early twentieth century. This volume of poems was inspired by a trip to Boundary Bay—a shallow bay that stretches across the coasts of British Columbia and Washington state—but also includes works previously published in an array of magazines. Research by the donor of this volume has verified that it was gifted by L.M. Montgomery to her cousin and close friend Beatrice Alberta ("Bertie") McIntyre. A holograph inscription on front end paper reads: "Dearest, I hope you will find in these poems the pleasure I have found in my copy. They seem echoes of the old days where we tasted life together. Lovingly yours, Maud, 1923." She and Maud rarely passed up an opportunity to visit one another, and Maud sent her many books throughout her life. Montgomery also dedicated her third novel, 'Kilmeny of the Orchard' (1910) to Bertie., association

: Jane of Lantern Hill; (Toronto : T.H. Best Print. Co.), L. M. Montgomery ; with a frontispiece in colour by Loiuse Costello., L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., The back cover of this first edition includes a rare promotional blurb from Montgomery, praising Della T. Lute's autobiographical novel, 'The Country Kitchen.' McClelland and Stewart published the Canadian editions of 'The Country Kitchen' (published in the US by Little, Brown and Company), and perhaps Montgomery was sent a copy of Lutes' novel by the publisher. Her comment reads, "A thousand thanks for sending me that delightful Book 'THE COUNTRY KITCHEN.' I haven't read anything in years that gave me so much pleasure. I seemed on every page to be living over again my own childhood in that old P.E. Island kitchen I remember so well. The book is so full of delightful humor and characters. Its people are alive. I've put it away on my 'special bookshelf' where I keep all the books I really love.", association

: The Boston Museum of Fine Arts; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., Julia de Wolf Addison (1866-1952) was an author and artist from Boston, Massachusetts. She worked in mosaic, embroidery, and illustration, but also wrote books on art and art history. In addition to this detailed guide to the holdings of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, she also wrote guides to the (American) National Gallery (1902) and the Dresden Gallery (1907). This volume is an artifact of L.M. Montgomery's trip to Boston in November, 1910, for important meetings with the publisher of her first seven books, L.C. Page. During the visit, Montgomery spent a day with Mrs. Page and another couple. They visited the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Montgomery enjoyed every rushed moment of the visit. She noted in her journal that she didn’t have enough time to really savor the experience but that “to see the pictures themselves was a revelation”(‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ Volume II, p. 326). Like the copy of ‘Fires of Driftwood’ included in this Bookshelf Collection, this book was inscribed and gifted to Montgomery’s cousin Bertie McIntyre. It reads, "To Bertie with love from L.M. Montgomery [,] November 14, 1910.” The book was donated with an accompanying postcard with a coloured lithograph of the Museum, postmarked March 7, 1910, but this card has no apparent connection to L.M. Montgomery., association

: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. I; L.M. Montgomery Institute., Donated by Mary Beth Cavert., association, Reading all six volumes of Gibbon’s ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ is often regarded as an impressive feat by avid readers. Montgomery read it at least three times. She noted in her journal that she first tackled it in 1907, then again in 1919, and once more in 1926. On each reading, she was struck by the magnitude of the story, writing, “It is a massive work. What millions of men and women have lived and toiled and suffered and succeeded and failed!! What is _one_ among such a multitude? Isn’t it presumptuous even to hope for an individual immortality?” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The P.E.I. Years,’ Volume 2, p. 167). The volumes themselves were first published between 1776 and 1789, and Gibbon’s thesis was largely grounded in the Enlightenment age in which he wrote. He contends that the eventual fall of the empire could be blamed, in part, on the lack of certain virtues (moral, civic) among the Roman citizens. Later historians saw Gibbon’s work as a highly literary (i.e., fictionalized) history; Walter Bagehot, Victorian journalist and businessman, said that Gibbon’s “is not a style in which you can tell the truth.” But that did not stop the text from becoming a popular, if not infamous, history of the age. Montgomery inscribed her copy April 2, 1906. The second inscription reads “Cameron Macdonald, Toronto, Ont. May 25/42.” “Cameron,” here, is Montgomery’s son Chester Cameron Macdonald, who often signed his name as “Cameron." He inscribed the book in May of 1942, just one month after her death. The volume also includes a few annotations from Montgomery. On page 275, scanned here, Montgomery has left two small question marks by Gibbon’s fabricated description of Canada: “The reindeer are very numerous, the ground is covered in deep and lasting snow, and the great river St. Lawrence is regularly frozen, in a season when the waters of the Seine and the Thames are usually free from ice.”

: Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell. Scans used with permission from Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University., Authors Whose Replies to the Questionnaire Make Up the Body of This Book:Bill Adams; Samuel Hopkins Adams; Paul L. Anderson; William Ashley Anderson; H. C. Bailey; Edwin Balmer; Ralph Henry Barbour; Frederick Orin Bartlett; Nalbro Bartley; Konrad Bercovici; Ferdinand Berthoud; H. H. Birney, Jr.; Farnham Bishop; Algernon Blackwood; Max Bonter; Katharine Holland Brown; F. R. Buckley; Prosper Buranelli; Thompson Burtis; George M. A. Cain; Robert V. Carr; George L. Catton; Robert W. Chambers; Roy P. Churchill; Carl Clausen; Courtney Ryley Cooper; Arthur Crabb; Mary Stewart Cutting; Elmer Davis; William Harper Dean; Harris Dickson; Captain Dingle; Louis Dodge; Phyllis Duganne; J. Allan Dunn; Walter A. Dyer; Walter Prichard Eaton; Charles Victor Fischer; E. O. Foster; Arthur O. Friel; J. U. Giesy; George Gilbert; Kenneth Gilbert; Louise Closser Hale; Holworthy Hall; Richard Matthews Hallet; William H. Hamby; A. Judson Hanna; Joseph Mills Hanson; E. E. Harriman; Nevil G. Henshaw; Joseph Hergesheimer; Robert Hichens; R. de S. Horn; Clyde B. Hough; Emerson Hough; A. S. M. Hutchinson; Inez Haynes Irwin; Will Irwin; Charles Tenney Jackson; Frederick J. Jackson; Mary Johnston; John Joseph; Lloyd Kohler; Harold Lamb; Sinclair Lewis; Hapsburg Liebe; Romaine H. Lowdermilk; Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.; Rose Macaulay; Crittenden Marriott; Homer I. McEldowney; Ray McGillivray; Helen Topping Miller; Thomas Samson Miller; Anne Shannon Monroe; L. M. Montgomery; Frederick Moore; Talbot Mundy; Kathleen Norris; Anne O’Hagan; Grant Overton; Sir Gilbert Parker; Hugh Pendexter; Clay Perry; Michael J. Phillips; Walter B. Pitkin; E. S. Pladwell; Lucia Mead Priest; Eugene Manlove Rhodes; Frank C. Robertson; Ruth Sawyer; Chester L. Saxby; Barry Scobee; R. T. M. Scott; Robert Simpson; Arthur D. Howden Smith; Theodore Seixas Solomons; Raymond S. Spears; Norman Springer; Julian Street; T. S. Stribling; Booth Tarkington; W. C. Tuttle; Lucille Van Slyke; Atreus von Schrader; T. Von Ziekursch; Henry Kitchell Webster; G. A. Wells; William Wells; Ben Ames Williams; Honore Willsie; H. C. Witwer; William Almon Wolff; Edgar Young, In the early 1920s, Arthur Sullivant Hoffman began writing a guidebook to fiction writing. Hoffman, a veteran editor for a variety of magazines, was attempting to combat the rise of “machine-like” fiction that “poured across” his desk. In the process of building his guidebook, 'Fundamentals of Fiction Writing' (1922), he sent a formal questionnaire to 116 authors, including L.M. Montgomery, in order to build an appendix of helpful, expert advice for authors. Hoffman thought that a few responses from a handful of successful writers would greatly improve the usefulness of his guide. After all, he said, “no one else in the world can bring us so quickly to the real heart of the matter or come so close to speaking the final word” than published authors themselves (2). But the authors’ answers proved “too valuable to be tucked away in the appendix for any book” (4). Instead, he collected all of their responses into this volume, 'Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing' (1923). Hoffman’s questions are detailed: “What is the genesis of a story with you —does it grow from an incident, a character, a trait of character, a situation, setting, a title, or what? That is, what do you mean by an idea for a story?” And the variety of answers offer a wealth of advice (sometimes even contradictory) from a variety of perspectives. Compared to some of the other authors included, Montgomery provided thorough, often practical, answers that illuminate her process and explain her approach to fiction writing. In contrast, a few other authors, Sinclair Lewis for example, offered only short answers. Hoffman asked, “What are two or three of the most valuable suggestions you could give to a beginner? To a practised writer?” Montgomery offered a page of advice, first suggesting that writers shouldn’t write “if they can help it” and only if they can’t. She also recommends finding trusted readers, revising and pruning, and cultivating a “note-book habit” (see pages 355-56). Lewis answered only, “Work, work, work.” Read together, Montgomery’s answers to Hoffman’s questions are perhaps the most detailed discussion of her craft available. Reading all of the responses together offers a fascinating peek into the minds of authors and into the world of publishing at the time. Montgomery is included with authors from a variety of backgrounds and genres: Ralph Henry Barbour (sports fiction for boys), Algernon Blackwood (ghost stories), Will Irwin (journalist, muckracker, memoirist), Harold Lamb (fiction and short stories of Asia and the Middle East), Sinclair Lewis (Nobel prize winning author of Main Street and other novels), Rose Macaulay (prolific writer of fiction and biography), and Booth Tarkington (writer and dramatist), to name a few. Note: The full-text of Montgomery’s answers are also reprinted in the first volume of Benjamin Lefebvre’s 'The L.M Montgomery Reader series, A Life in Print' (University of Toronto P, 2013)., other

: The Passing of the Third Floor Back and Other Stories; Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) was an English writer best known for his comic travelogue, ‘Three Men and a Boat’ (1889). “The Passing of the Third Floor Back,'' a short story that he later turned into a play, anchors this collection first published in 1907. Montgomery was clearly fond of Jerome, and she quoted from his essay collection ‘The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow’ more than once, particularly the line, “life tastes much the same, whether we quaff it from a golden goblet or drink it out of a stone mug.” This volume was owned by L.M. Montgomery, and the inscription reads: "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald 1927" with her signature cat drawing next to her name. Beneath this inscription is another one in a different handwriting that reads: "H. du D. Rothwell". Montgomery has also pasted a small newspaper clipping into the book. The clipping includes a short poem “Books! Books! Books! / And we thank Thee God for the gift of them; / For the glorious reach and lift of them; / For the gleam in them and the dream in them; / For the things they teach and the souls they reach; / For the light in them, and the might in them; / For the throngs of folk they bring to us, / And the song of hope they sing to us.” The word "Wawataysee" at the bottom of the clipping could possibly indicate Wawataysee Island located in Muskoka, Ontario. Wawataysee Island is not far from Bala, Ontario, where the Maconalds stayed for two weeks and which inspired her to write ‘The Blue Castle,’ (1926)., L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" ; "The Philosopher's Joke" ; "The Soul of Nicholas Snyders, or the Miser of Zandam" ; "Mrs. Korner Sins Her Mercies" ; "The Cost of Kindness" ; "The Love of Ulrich Nebendahl", association

: Tip Lewis and His Lamp; L.M. Montgomery Institute., Donated by Elizabeth Epperly., “The Pansy Books,” were a series of wholesome, “Sunday School books” written for children between 1865 and 1931. Their author, Isabella Macdonald Alden, aka “Pansy” from a childhood nickname, wrote over one hundred such novels, all Christian didactic fiction. ‘Tip Lewis and His Lamp’ was one of the most popular of the already best-selling Pansy books, and it tells the story of the mischievous young Tip, who finds counsel from a loving minister and a smart, young teacher. Montgomery read many of the Pansy books, and she noted in her autobiography, ‘The Alpine Path’ (1917), that the books were among the few she was allowed to have in the house as a child aside from ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ Dickens, and a few others. ‘Anne of Green Gables’ also includes mention of a new Pansy book that a schoolmate is going to share with the other girls., contemporaneous

: The Voice of Canada; A.M. Maitland was a Canadian poet and editor who collected this volume of "national literature" primarily for use in middle grades in schools. Maitland's introduction notes that he included some selections because of their "historic or other interest" and others because they are "peculiarly Canadian." The collection includes pieces from Bliss Carman, Marjorie Pickthall, Isabel Ecclestone MacKay (whose collection 'Fires of Driftwood' is also part of the L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf), Charles G.D. Roberts, William Henry Drummond, and many others. Montgomery herself read many of these authors elsewhere, mentioning them in her journals and other works. Interestingly, Maitland chose to include a portion of Montgomery's Emily of New Moon, rather than Anne of Green Gables in this collection. Perhaps he chose Emily since it was published just four years prior to the publication of this work, or perhaps he found Emily more suited to his middle grade audience. Maitland included selected passages from Emily of New Moon's first chapter, wherein Emily goes for a walk and experiences her first "flash." The passages about Emily's "flash" are not at all unlike Montgomery's discussions of the same phenomena in her journals and in her autobiography, The Alpine Path. Maitland may have also chosen these passages as they reinforce his hope "that, in presenting the work in this book, teachers may enter into the mood and mental enthusiasm of the authors and leave with the children the impression of beauty, greatness, and power" (vii). Montgomery inscribed this copy in 1927., L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., association

: The Watchman and Other Poems [Frede Campbell]; The Watchman -- Rain Along Shore -- Sea Sunset -- When the Dark Comes Down -- Harbor Moonrise -- Before Storm -- On the Bay -- A Shore Twilight -- Song of the Sea-wind -- Morning along shore -- Off to the Fishing Ground -- In Port -- The Gulls -- Sunrise Along Shore -- The Sea Spirit -- Harbor Dawn -- My Longshore Lass -- When the Fishing Boats Go Out -- The Bridal -- The Sea to the Shore -- The Voyagers -- Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand -- Come, Rest Awhile -- An April Night -- Rain on the Hill -- For Little Things -- Spring Song -- A Day Off -- The Wind -- The Wool Pool -- Down Stream -- Echo Dell -- The Rovers -- Among the Pines -- A Day in the Open -- Midnight in Camp -- The Hill Maples -- A Summer Day -- September -- Lovers' Lane -- On the Hills -- An Autumn Evening -- November Evening -- Out O' Doors -- In the Days of the Golden Rod -- A Winter Day -- Twilight -- The Call of the Winds -- A Winter Dawn -- The Forest Path -- At Nightfall -- The Truce O' Night -- To My Enemy -- As the Heart Hopes -- Two Loves -- The Christmas Night -- In An Old Farmhouse -- A Request -- Memory Pictures -- Down Home -- The Choice -- Twilight in the Garden -- My Legacy -- Gratitude -- Fancies -- One of the Shepherds -- If Mary Had Known -- At the Long Sault --The Exile., This copy of Montgomery's poetry collection is inscribed "To Frede, with the author's love. Xmas 1916 L.M. Montgomery Macdonald," the next passage reads "To Mr. and Mrs. Lockhead in remembrance of their friend, Frederica C. MacFarlane, who went on The Great Adventure, Jan. 25, 1919." Frederica (Frede) Campbell MacFarlane (1883-1919) was one of Montgomery's cousins and dearest friends. After Montgomery returned to Cavendish, PEI more permanently in 1902 (after a few years of teaching and some time at a newspaper in Halifax, Nova Scotia), their friendship blossomed. Many of Montgomery's journal entries from this time detail their long conversations, shared jokes, and deep bonds. In 1911, Montgomery dedicated 'The Story Girl' to Frede, "in remembrance of old days, old dreams, and old laughter." Frede frequently visited and stayed with Montgomery in Ontario during the 1910s, and completed a degree in Household Science from Macdonald College in 1912. Frede worked supporting women's institutes right up through WWI. Frede's death from the influenza pandemic of 1919 shook Montgomery to her core. The author then dedicated her homefront novel, 'Rilla of Ingleside' (1921) to Frede, saying, "To the memory of Frederica Campbell Macfarlane who went away from me when the dawn broke on January 25th, 1919--a true friend, a rare personality, a loyal and courageous soul." While Montgomery might not have read or pored over this edition of her poems, she clearly took pains to care for it, passing it on to other friends after Frede was gone., L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., other

: Further Chronicles of Avonlea [Webb]; Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat -- The Materializing of Cecil -- Her Father's Daughter -- Jane's Baby -- The Dream Child -- The Brother Who Failed -- The Return of Hester -- The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily --Sara's Way -- Son of His Mother -- The Education of Betty -- In Her Selfless Mood -- The Conscience Case of David Bell -- Only a Common Fellow -- Tannis of the Flats. [John Goss (illustrator), Nathan Haskell Dole (author of introduction)], L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell, other, In 1920, L.C. Page published this collection of short stories, seemingly a companion to Montgomery’s Chronicles of Avonlea (1912). However, the versions of the stories used in the published Further Chronicles were not the versions Montgomery had intended to publish at all. Montgomery had agreed, reluctantly, to publish these stories, once slated for inclusion in the 1912 collection, if and only if she could revise them to remove references to Anne Shirley and other descriptive passages she had since used elsewhere in her work. Page did not use her revised stories and instead published the original drafts. Montgomery sued, and the matter was not settled (in Montgomery’s favor) until 1928. This copy of Further Chronicles was inscribed by Montgomery and later given to Anita Webb, friend and cousin of the author. Anita was born in 1911 and raised in the house that inspired “Green Gables,” working as a cook and hostess for the many tourists that visited the site each summer. Webb was a friend and later companion for Montgomery when she got older. In this copy, and in other copies of Further Chronicles she sent to friends, Montgomery noted and annotated some of the passages that should have been revised had Page honoured their agreement. While this volume is not perhaps one of Montgomery’s “favourite reads,” as other items on the Bookshelf are, it does reveal the author’s careful attention to, and re-reading of, her own work. Her inscription pages, likely written at different times, read “This book was published by the Page Co. from manuscripts which I had never given them permission to use. Hence it is full of sentences and passages which have already been published in my other books. Also they interpolated in ‘Tannis of the Flats’ several paragraphs that injured it as an artistic unit.” and “In 1920 I entered suit against The Page Co. for an injunction to restrain them from publishing this book. In 1928, after pending nearly nine years I won the suit. See journal + box of documents”

: The Country Kitchen; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection, Donated by Donna Jane Campbell, Della T. Lute's 'The Country Kitchen' is at once a novel and a work of autobiography; it tells the story of a young girl's life on a Michigan farm in the late nineteenth century and includes an array of family recipes woven into the text. Lutes herself was an expert in homemaking and cooking, working as editor for magazines like 'American Motherhood' and 'Modern Priscilla' before collecting various essays on her childhood into the novel, 'The Country Kitchen.' The book won the National Book Award for "Most Original Book" in 1936. Montgomery was clearly a fan of the book; when McClelland & Stewart's first Canadian edition of L.M. Montgomery's 'Jane of Lantern Hill' was published in 1937 (see Ryrie-Campbell: 551 JLH-MS 1ST), it included an enthusiastic quote from L.M. Montgomery on the dust jacket back panel praising 'The Country Kitchen.' Montgomery's promotional blurb read "A thousand thanks for sending me that delightful Book 'THE COUNTRY KITCHEN.' I haven't read anything in years that gave me so much pleasure. I seemed on every page to be living over again my own childhood in that old P.E. Island kitchen I remember so well. The book is so full of delightful humor and characters. Its people are alive. I've put it away on my 'special bookshelf' where I keep all the books I really love." (Browse the full text of the book here), contemporaneous

: The Brontës and Their Circle; L.M. Montgomery Institute., Clement Shorter (1857-1926) was an English journalist and literary critic. Particularly fascinated by the work of the Brontë's, he edited this collection of Brontë texts as well as a collection of their letters and a later edition of Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Life of Charlotte Brontë' (originally published in 1857). Montgomery read the Brontës, and Gaskell's biography, multiple times. Notes in her journal show her admiration for the sisters and their literary talent and sympathy, if not pity, for their short lives. Shorter's collection includes a variety of narratives and letters, divided by topic and by family member. It serves as a kind of archive, a complement to Gaskell's thorough biography, that provides glimpses into the daily lives of Anne, Emily, Charlotte, and others of their acquaintance. Montgomery discusses reading the collection in her journal on 22 September 1925: "This evening I have finished reading 'Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle' [Note: Montgomery has the title wrong] by Shorter. Hitherto I have thought that the fascination Charlotte Brontë's life and personality held for me was largely due to the literary charm of Mrs. Gaskell’s biography. But it is just as strong in this book so I have concluded that it is inherent in her. Charlotte Brontë made only about seven thousand by her books—not a tenth of what one of the flimsy and ephemeral 'best sellers' of today would bring in. It seems unfair and unjust. What I admire most in Charlotte Brontë is her absolute clear-sightedness regarding shams and sentimentalities. Nothing of the sort could impose on her. And she always hewed straight to the line. I have been asking myself 'If I had known Charlotte Brontë in life how would we have reacted upon each other? Would I have liked her? Would she have liked me?' I answer 'no.' She was absolutely without a sense of humor. I could never find a kindred spirit in a woman without a sense of humor. And for the same reason she would not have approved of me at all. All the same, had she been compelled to live with me for awhile I could have done her whole heaps of good. A few jokes would have leavened the gloom and tragedy of that Haworth parsonage amazingly. Charlotte would have been thirty per cent better for it. But she would have written most scathing things about me to Miss Nussey and Mrs. Gaskell. ... People have spoken of Charlotte Brontë's 'creative genius.' Charlotte Brontë had no creative genius. Her genius was one of amazing ability to describe and interpret the people and surroundings she knew. All the people in her books who impress us with such a wonderful sense of reality were drawn from life. She herself is 'Jane Eyre' and 'Lucy Snowe.' Emily was 'Shirley.' 'Rochester,' whom she did 'create' was unnatural and unreal. 'Blanche Ingram' was unreal. 'St. John' was unreal. Most of her men are unreal. She knew nothing of men except her father and brother and the Belgian professor of her intense and unhappy love. 'Emmanuel' was drawn from him and therefore is one of the few men, if not the only man, in her books who is 'real'." (‘L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922-1925), Donated by Emily Woster, association

: The Blower of Bubbles; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., In the introduction to this volume, author Arthur Beverley Baxter, notes that the First World War was the backdrop to the stories collected here. While war isn't the _subject_ of each story, he says that "war has been a fever in our blood these last four years" and that his stories are meant to foster "kinship" across the Dominion to England. Baxter himself served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, posted in England. He was perhaps better known in his lifetime as a journalist, writing for papers in London and beyond before working as a theatre critic and then politician. The stories here are short sketches of everyday people, in England and Canada. Research by the donor has verified that volume was owned by L.M. Montgomery and later owned by Mrs. E.C. Webb (mother of Anita Webb, to whom Montgomery gave this copy of her 'Further Chronicles of Avonlea'). Mrs. Webb is Myrtle MacNeill, who lived with her husband at the house later to be called 'Green Gables' until 1936 when it became part of the National Park in Cavendish. The inscription on the inside reads, "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald 1920." Another inscription below it reads: "Mrs. E.C. Webb. Xmas 1924.", association

: Courageous Women; Joan of Arc --- Florence Nightingale -- Mary Siesor -- Laura Secord -- Catharine Parr Traill -- Queen Victoria -- Madeleine de Vercheres -- Helen Keller -- Ada May Courtice -- Caroline Macdonald -- Elizabeth Louise Mair -- Anna J. Gaudin -- Edith Cavell -- Sadie Stringer -- Madame Albani -- (Tekakionwake) Pauline Johnson -- Aletta Elise Mary -- Dr. Margaret Mackellar -- Margaret Polson Murray -- Lady Tilley -- Marshall Saunders., L.M. Montgomery, Marian Keith, Mabel Burns McKinley., L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., This jointly-written volume of short biographies is included in the L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf Project not just because Montgomery likely read this text after she received her copy, but because she also read works by many of the women included in it. Montgomery read works by Catherine Parr Traill, Marshall Saunders, and Helen Keller at other times in her life. Her co-authors here, Marian Keith (real name Mary Esther MacGregor) and Mabel Burns McKinley, were both authors in their own right. Keith wrote novels and short stories and counted Montgomery as a friend in Canadian women's literary circles. McKinley published one novel and four other volumes on famous Canadians. In Courageous Women, the three authors recount "Inspiring Biographies of Girls Who Grew to be Women of Courage and Achievement." Montgomery was responsible for the entries on Joan of Arc (15th century patron saint of France), Florence Nightingale (late-19th century pioneer of modern nursing) and Mary Slessor (late-19th century Scottish missionary to Nigeria). A review of the volume from the Toronto Globe at the time noted that "the stories of these great women make enthralling reading – far more fascinating than fiction" ('The L.M. Montgomery Reader series, A Legacy in Review,' ed. by Benjamin Lefebvre, U of Toronto P, 2013, p. 327). Montgomery's chapters have been reprinted in the first volume of Benjamin Lefebvre’s 'The L.M Montgomery Reader series, A Life in Print' (University of Toronto P, 2013)., contemporaneous

: This Incredible Adventure; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., 'This Incredible Adventure' by (John) Armour Macmillan was owned L.M. Montgomery and later by her son Chester Cameron Macdonald. The inscription reads "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald 1930" with a small cat drawing; the date of the inscription means that she would have been living at the Norval Manse in Ontario. The other inscription, "Cameron Macdonald Toronto, Ont, May 25/42," was made just after Montgomery's death on April 24, 1942. Chester "helped himself" to books and papers belonging to his mother after her death before her younger son Stuart Macdonald was able to change door locks on the Toronto house. The book is often categorized as "fantastic" literature, and it tells the story of a 20th-century man drawn back to 600 BC. According to one contemporary review, the protagonist "wriggles out" of various scrapes and incidents using his knowledge of history.

: The Wolves of God and Other Fey Stories; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., Algernon Blackwood was a prolific journalist and writer who became well-known for reading many of his horror stories live on BBC radio and television. Blackwood wrote hundreds of short stories and more than a dozen novels in his lifetime, and he was fascinated by the occult, hypnotism, hauntings, the "weird" and the unexplained. His best known stories, "The Willows" and "The Wendigo" are still considered classics of horror short fiction. The latter story is set in a remote area of northern Ontario, and, as the titles suggests, draws on Indigenous folklore along with supernatural themes. H.P. Lovecraft listed Blackwood among one of the "Modern Masters" of horror in his 1927 essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Lovecraft noted Blackwood's talent for highlighting "the strangeness of ordinary things," and he said that "amidst [Blackwood's] voluminous and uneven work may be found some of the finest spectral literature of this or any age." His co-author, Wilfred Wilson, was a much lesser-known author of the same genres; this collection of short stories, most previously published in magazines, his most enduring legacy. Wolves of God features 15 stories with a variety of themes: supernatural creatures, giant insects, spirits, disembodied voices, and ghosts. This copy of the volume was owned by L.M. Montgomery while she was living at the Leaskdale Manse in Ontario based on her inscription that reads: "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald June 1922.", association

: The Book of Praise; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., The Book of Praise is a comprehensive collection of Psalms and Hymns for congregational worship. Montgomery inscribed this copy in 1940., association

: A Bad Boy's Diary; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Emily Woster., contemporaneous, On Monday, May 12 1902, Montgomery wrote in her journal that "Today I’ve laughed more than I’ve done for a month together. I’ve been re- reading 'A Bad Boy’s Diry [sic].'That book is responsible for you, my journal. ‘Twas from it I first got the idea of keeping a 'diry'. When I was about nine years old Mr. Fraser, the Cavendish school teacher, who boarded at our place, had the book. I think I regarded it as a classic then. I read it and re-read it and promptly began a ‘diry’ I folded and cut and sewed four sheets of foolscap into a book and covered it with red paper. On the cover I wrote 'Maud Montgomery’s Diry'. Years ago I burned it in one of my iconoclastic fits. It was a pity, for it really should have been preserved as one of the curiosities of literature. The 'bad boy' was, of course, my model. He spelled almost every word wrong; therefore so did I of malice prepense. He was always in mischief and wrote accounts of it in his diary. Although not very mischievous by nature, being bookish and dreamy, nevertheless I schemed and planned many naughty tricks for no other reason than I might have them to write in my 'dere diry.' But I had never seen the book since then and had forgotten it so completely that it was new to me. I just howled over it today for it was absurdly funny still—even funnier than I used to think it, I imagine, for I took it quite seriously in those days, when I made a hero and a model out of 'little Georgie.' (from 'The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901-1911, Eds Rubio and Waterston, p. 54). The author, Metta Victor (1831-1885) wrote more than one hundred "dime novels" under dozens of pen names including works for children, sentimental stories for women, and even crime fiction. 'The Bad Boy' is her most enduring work, inspiring sequels and knock-offs that copy his unique voice. Scanned here is the first chapter of Georgie's story.

: Inside Europe; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., John Gunther was a well-known Chicago journalist who spent most of 1924 to 1936 traveling in and reporting on the rise of regimes and tensions across the continent. His 'Inside Europe' became the first in a series of 'Inside' studies of places around the world including Inside U.S.A (1947), Inside Africa (1955), Inside South America (1967), and others. Montgomery's copy of Inside Europe from 1937 was likely one of the versions slightly updated from its original publication in 1934. Gunther's books offered a comprehensive survey of each place, complete with relevant statistics and interviews of average citizens, leaders, businesspeople, and politicians. A review from 'The Atlantic' in 1936 noted that "Observing Europe from across the Atlantic in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, Americans are perplexed at the spectacle of a continent torn by jealousies, devoured by hatreds, split into rival factions, staggering perilously along the brink of war. To the casual observer, the headline reader, the spectacle makes little sense, and he is all too apt to dismiss it, smugly, as a form of collective insanity. It is the chief merit of this admirable and exciting volume that it rearranges the furious jumble of hate and fear into an understandable, if not orderly, pattern." In 1947, Gunther would publish the best-selling memoir 'Death Be Not Proud,' the story of his son's illness and death from a brain tumor. Browse the full text of 'Inside Europe' here., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., association

: Over on the Island; Helen Jean Champion., Montgomery owned a copy of this unique book that includes a chapter on "Anne of Green Gables Country." The book is both novel and travelogue, following characters as they travel around Prince Edward Island learning, and often explaining its history, its people, and its natural landscapes. Champion was born in Tyne Valley, Prince Edward Island in 1910, and by the time she was beginning to publish her writing, she had watched Cavendish turn into a tourist destination and Green Gables house and environs turn into a National Park in 1936. On page 182 of 'Over on The Island,' the narrator notes that "Cavendish is Anne country," and perhaps confusingly mentions that "Like Peter Pan, Anne really existed, and still exists in this lovely land of the North Shore." The narrator then walks the reader up the drive to Green Gables itself, where Marilla (in our imaginations, anyway) stands at the doorway. Other chapters explore the shore and small towns and farmland that dot the Island. The book also contains outdated depictions of the Island's Mi'kmaq people, depictions that would have been familiar to Montgomery but are considered both inaccurate and offensive today. Overall, Champion's book is a sort of time capsule, capturing a snapshot of the Island as it was to the author, how Montgomery's fiction imprinted itself onto the land, and how people of the time viewed the Island's culture. Browse the full text of the novel here. Read more about the history of P.E.I. and its people here., Includes index., L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Ryrie-Campbell copy donated by Donna Jane Campbell., contemporaneous

: Silk: As Legend as Narrated in the Journals and Correspondence of Jan Po; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., Donated by Donna Jane Campbell., This copy of Merwin's 'Silk' was owned by L.M. Montgomery and inscribed "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald November 1923." Samuel Merwin (1874-1936) was a prolific author of short stories, novels, and plays, as well as magazine and newspaper articles. He was the nephew of Frances Willard, prominent women's suffrage activist and president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Willard no doubt influenced Merwin's works, where women's voting rights and early feminist ideals are frequent themes. In the early 1900s, Merwin was sent to China to investigate the opium trade, and what he learned and saw there became the backdrop for many of his stories and his 1908 nonfiction work 'The Drugging of a Nation: The Story of China and the Opium Curse.' 'Silk' is a historical novel, framed largely as a first-person journal. The novel was also published in installments in McCall's Magazine throughout 1923. McCall's notes that the story follows "Jan Po, a young Chinese mandarin, [who] finds himself surrounded by the intrigue of a hostile court and beset by spies endeavoring to learn the secret of silk culture, the key to China’s commercial greatness." Each installment also featured a singular illustration by famed artist N.C. Wyeth, and the published novel collects all of these illustrations into the one volume. The full text can be read here. , association

: Samantha at Saratoga; Donated by Emily Woster., contemporaneous, Marietta Holley (1836-1926) was an American humorist who published dozens of stories and novels in her lifetime. She particularly enjoyed writing "dialect sketches" that poked fun at hapless characters and their often ignorant stumbles through life, all written in varying degrees of (real or imagined) dialects. Her most enduring creation was "Josiah Allen's Wife," named Samantha, who narrated various travel stories and opinion pieces. The Allens traveled around the United States and the world in volumes like 'Samantha in Europe' (1895), 'Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition' (1904), and 'Samantha at Coney Island and a Thousand Other Islands' (1911). Samatha also shared opinions in 'Samantha on the Race Problem' (1892) and 'Samantha on the Woman Question' (1914). On women's suffrage, Samantha declared, "Josiah Allen, you think that for a woman to stand up straight on her feet, under a blazin’ sun, and lift both her arms above her head, and pick seven bushels of hops, mingled with worms and spiders, into a gigantic box, day in, and day out is awful healthy, so strengthenin’ and stimulatin’ to wimmin, but when it comes to droppin’ a little slip of clean paper into a small seven by nine box, once a year in a shady room, you are afraid it is goin’ to break down a woman’s constitution to once." (from 'My Opinions on Betsey Bobbets', 1876). Holley's popular brand of satire brought ideas of women's rights and temperance into public conversation, and her work was often compared to that of Mark Twain. In fact, Holley struck up a friendship with one of Twain's illustrators, True Williams. Interestingly, unlike Samantha, Holley never married and rarely traveled, even turning down invitations to the women's suffrage and temperance conventions. In 'Samantha at Saratoga,' the Allens have made their way to Saratoga Springs, New York, where they have run-ins with locals and take walks through town. Montgomery cites, sometimes in passing, "Josiah Allen's Wife" multiple times, most notably in Chapter 38 of 'Anne of Green Gables'. Read more of Samantha's adventures here., L.M. Montgomery Institute.

: The Princess Virginia; Donated by Emily Woster., contemporaneous, L.M. Montgomery Institute., In a long journal entry dated April 8, 1898, Montgomery recounts stories of her time teaching and boarding in Lower Bedeque, PEI. The entry discusses the many events of the previous year, including the death of her maternal Grandfather Macneill, the end of her engagement to Edwin Simpson, and her romantic “affair” with Herman Leard. Through the fall and winter of 1897-1898, Montgomery and Leard spent many a romantic evening together, but she would not (could not, according to her) marry him. At the beginning of the journal entry, Montgomery pasted in a small illustration clipped from a magazine. It is a black-and-white sketch of the head and shoulders of a handsome young man in some kind of uniform. His face, lit by what looks like moonlight, gazes downward. Montgomery captioned the image “Picture cut from magazine. As much like Herman Leard as if it were his photograph.” She did not note which magazine she clipped it from. But the curator of the L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf, Emily Woster, stumbled across its source material in 2008 when she found a copy of this novel, ‘The Princess Virginia’ (1907) by C.N. and A.M. Williamson and recognized the dashing man on the cover. Montgomery’s clipping of “Herman” is none other than the chivalrous Prince Leopold of Rhaetia from the pages of ‘The Princess Virginia.’ The novel was published in April 1907 by Charles Norris and Alice Muriel Williamson, prolific authors of romantic and sensation fiction, publishing 44 novels between 1903 and 1925. ‘The New York Times’ called ‘The Princess Virginia’ a “galloping romance,” and it includes many hallmarks of the genre: characters in disguise, mistaken identities, disapproving parents, and the promise of wealth with a “happily ever after.” Most interesting in this case, however, is that the novel was serialized, with illustrations in black and white by Leon Guipon, from August 1906 to January of 1907 in ‘The Ladies Home Journal.’ No doubt, this is where Montgomery found her clipping. Each month, the magazine featured a different one of Guipon’s illustrations, and Montgomery found her “Herman” in the November 1906 issue. The full photo, linked here, shows our hero and heroine, saying tearful goodbyes in the moonlight. Since Montgomery didn’t mention it specifically, there is no way to know whether she read the entire story from the magazine, whether or not she read the novel, or even confirm exactly when she added the clipping to her journal (Was it in her original handwritten journal? Did she add it in later? Did she add it when she was copying out the journals in the early 1920s?). But it is interesting to note that the source of her clipping was another romance story. Even if she didn’t read the text closely, Montgomery must have felt at least somewhat akin to the heroine, Virginia, in the image, parting ways with her Leopold. Of note, too, is Alice Williamson’s 1915 interview with the ‘New York Times,’ in which she made a point to highlight that her “heroines are much too sensible to marry the wrong man.” You can read more about this novel, about Herman Leard, and about the sources for some of her other scrapbook material in The Shining Scroll newsletter from 2008.

: The Flower-Patch Among the Hills; contemporaneous, Flora Klickmann (given name: Emily Flora Klickmann, 1867-1958) was an English writer and editor. Before she gained fame for the seven books in her 'Flower-Patch' series, she was editor of the 'Girls Own Paper,' a well-known 'story magazine' aimed at young girls. Montgomery received the first three 'Flower-Patch' books as gifts from correspondent G.B. MacMillan in the early 1920s, and they quickly became favourite books to read and re-read. In a letter from March of 1936, Montgomery told Macmillan, “I can’t tell you how I love them [the Flower Patch books] and how much pleasure they have given me. I keep them altogether in a little green-painted bookstand in my room and many a sleepless night of anxiety and worry in the past four years I have been comforted and helped by them.” This first book in the series began as sketches Klickmann wrote for 'The Girls Own Paper,' including a blend of autobiography, fictionalized bits of her own forays into the country, and garden appreciation. As this opening chapter indicates, it is meant to be an escape. "The [fictionalized] cottage [in the story] has been so arranged that not one solitary thing within its walls shall bear any relation to the city left far behind; and nothing is allowed to remind the occupants of the business rush, the social scramble, and the electric-light-type of existence that have become integral parts of modern life in towns." Read more about Montgomery and Macmillan's correspondence and 'gift books' here. Read the full-text of 'Flower-Patch Among the Hills' (and other Klickmann titles) here.

: Elizabeth and her German Garden; contemporaneous, 'Elizabeth and her German Garden', another semi-autobiographical, semi-satirical novel, was a longtime favourite of Montgomery's. It was first published in 1898, and Montgomery mentions reading and re-reading it multiple times. In 1905, Montgomery wrote that "My 'twin soul' must live in Elizabeth—at least, as far as gardening is concerned. She has said a hundred things that I always meant to say when I had thought them out sufficiently. I shan't have to say them now—Elizabeth has done it so well" (20 May 1905, Selected Journals 1:307). The titular "Elizabeth" was an fictionalized version of the author, Elizabeth von Arnim (née Mary Annette Beauchamp, later the Countess von Arnim-Schlagenthin and later still Elizabeth Russell, Countess Russell). The book is structured as a diary of "Elizabeth's" struggles and successes as she develops a garden on her estate, and it is filled with humorous reflections and opinions on a lady's life. The book was first published without an author's name attached, as this copy shows, but when it became a runaway bestseller, von Arnim added her pen name and later continued the series and added to "Elizabeth's" story. Read the full text of the novel here.

: The Life Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Montgomery's copy of "The Life Letters and Journals of Lord Byron" includes one pasted-in image of the book's editor, Thomas Moore, who was a poet and writer in his own right (he wrote the poem "The Last Rose of Summer'). Interesting, too, is that Montgomery inscribed the book "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald 1920," even though this copy of the book itself was published in 1908. Perhaps she purchased it used, or perhaps she inscribed it long after purchase, when she was rearranging books or reading it through again. Montgomery, of course, read Byron's works multiple times. She quotes (and misquotes) his works in her journals over and over throughout the years, and various lines from his "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" come up frequently. The two volumes of Moore's work were first published in 1830 and 1831. They consist, as the title suggests, of letters, journal entries, and other material, but they are not a true memoir. In fact, before his death in 1824, Byron had entrusted the manuscript of his actual memoirs to Moore. Through a series of unfortunate events--the opinions of a publisher, a duel, and input from Byron's wife--the manuscript was destroyed. Whether Moore was to blame for their destruction was a matter of much debate.

: Marie Bashkirtseff; contemporaneous, On 6 June 1924, Montgomery told her journal "This evening I was reading 'The Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff.' This book came out when I was a young girl and made a tremendous sensation. It was discussed in all the reviews. I longed to read it but books like that never penetrated to Cavendish and I could not afford to buy it. Recently a new edition was brought out and I sent for it. If it were published today for the first time it would hardly cause a ripple. We have had book after book of these intimate chronicles far more frank and sensational than poor Marie's passionate longings for fame and success. The diary is interesting at first but one tires of it as one reads on because it is just the same all the way through. It is a pitiful tragic record." Montgomery was probably right on all counts. The first edition of Bashkirtseff's diary was translated from French into English and published in 1887; Montgomery likely read an edition (which is highly abridged from the French original) closer to this one, with preface and afterward material added. Bashkirtseff (1858-1884) was born into privilege in Russia, later studying at the Académie Julian and exhibiting works at the Paris Salon. And while she achieved some measure of fame, it was her posthumously published diary that did create "ripples" in society and culture. It was a novel, intimate look into a woman artist's life. It includes lengthy narratives about the society in which she moved, and she expressed "passionate longings for fame and success." Montgomery noted that "I do not think Marie was a very agreeable person to live with. Her excessive craving for worldly success was abnormal and affected me unpleasantly, like a morbid thirst. ... I think the intensity of her desire was a symptom of the disease which killed her. Her subconsciousness knew her inherent tendency and realized that life might be short; hence it imbued her with a feverish desire to attain before death overtook her. I think her book will live because of its painful sincerity" ("L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922-1925," p. 253). Bashkirtseff died at age 25 from tuberculosis, which, at the time, would be considered a fittingly "romantic" end to an artist's life., Scans used with permission from Cornell University Library.

: The Four Gardens; Montgomery was gifted an early version of this book by her pen pal George Macmillan in 1905. Research shows that this story collection was first published by a small press in the UK sometime in 1905. It was then picked up by the larger presses that published it in the US and UK in 1912 (thanks to Mary Beth Cavert for research assistance). The book includes four separate garden stories with interspersed line drawings and full-page illustrations. Montgomery told Macmillan “I don’t know when I’ve read anything that pleased me as that book did. It is simply idyllic and I’ve already read it over four times. It has caught the very spirit of a garden and seemed to lead me into an enchanted world … Many many thanks for your gift and the thoughtfulness expressed in it” (unpublished portion of her letter from 19 March 1906). Emily Handasyde Buchanan was a Scottish writer who also published a book about Sir Walter Scott and another book of country sketches called "A Girl's Life in A Hunting Country" (1903). "The Four Gardens" includes the stories "The Haunted Garden," "The Old Fashioned Garden," 'The Poor Man’s Garden," and "The Rich Man’s Garden." A review from the "Spectator" magazine in 1912 noted that "There is a wholesome fragrance about these garden sketches that is very pleasant. Each of the four has a character of its own, but each leads us naturally to the next, as do the colours in a well-planned garden. The first of them, called a 'Haunted Garden,' tells of a ghost, one of whose manifestations is new, at any rate to the present writer. ... The story is so convincingly told that one would like to hear if the ghost's feet left any impression on newly fallen snow. ... A sad little love story and flower folk-names are intertwined in the 'Old-Fashioned Garden,' Scotland and England are contrasted in the 'Poor Man's Garden,' while the fourth chapter tells of a worried millionaire whose kindness of heart will not allow him to keep bores out of his garden.", Scans used courtesy of HathiTrust from University of California Berkeley Library. The four gardens / by Handasyde [i.e. E.H. Buchanan], SB455 .B85 1924, Environmental Design Library, University of California, Berkeley., contemporaneous

: Life of Samuel Johnson, vol. 1; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, The cover of this volume might appear plain and unassuming, but within the book lies evidence of many of Montgomery's connections to the wider world of literature and culture. This is Montgomery's copy of "The Life of Samuel Johnson" (first published in 1791) by James Boswell (1740-1795). "Boswell's Johnson" is considered a founding text in the genre of biography, and at the time of its publication, was considered groundbreaking. Unusual for its time, the biography is interspersed with personal conversations between the two men, conversations that didn't just focus on the public life and works of a great thinker, but incorporated personal details to paint a more intimate portrait. While the two spent considerable time speaking and corresponding, Boswell also highly edited, even censored, some of Johnson's conversation. Johnson (1709-1784), of course, is best known as a lexicographer who created one of the most influential (if not really "authoritative") dictionaries of the English language (that is, until the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary in the following century). Johnson took seven years compiling nearly 43,000 entries almost entirely by himself. While modern dictionaries pride themselves on objectively describing words as they are used and understood, Johnson took a few more liberties. His definition of "oats" for example, reads "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people." It is not surprising, though, that Montgomery owned a copy of Johnson's biography. It was and is an important text to literary critics and historians. In addition, the early pages of this copy show Montgomery's tendency to paste clippings and images into her books. After the inscription page, which reads "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald March 1916," and the title pages, Montgomery has added newspaper and magazine clippings of Boswell and Johnson. Her annotation on page 535 reads, "Johnson was wrong here." She was likely responding to Johnson's quoted opinion on Thomas Gray, "No, Sir, there are but two good stanzas in Gray's poetry, which are in his 'Elegy [Written] in a Country Churchyard.'" Montgomery certainly thought Gray was better than that, having quoted (and misquoted) from both "Elegy" and his "Progress of Poesy" multiple times in her journals, letters, and novels.

: Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Sir Walter Scott was one of Montgomery's favourite writers. Archival & Special Collections at the University of Guelph has 18 of Scott's works from Montgomery's personal library in their collection. She discussed and made allusions to his works in her journals, letters, and her fiction. In "Anne of Green Gables" alone, Montgomery alluded to six different Scott texts (see more on these allusions here). This copy of "The Narrative of the Life of Sir Walter Scott" was inscribed "L.M. Montgomery Macdonald March 1912" with her signature cat drawing. Montgomery has pasted an image of the Scott Monument in Edinburgh before the title page, and left a few annotations and comments throughout. On page 12, where Scott recounts a childhood illness, Montgomery has commented "infantile paralysis," and on page 349 she has noted next to the footnoted quotation, "Hector Macneill, my great-great grandfather's cousin. L.M.M." On page 651 she notes that the "immortal words" quoted are "not his" as they actually belong to Thomas Osbert Mordaunt. On other pages, she left brackets or lines around compelling quotations including, "Life could not be endured were it seen in reality," "real laughter is a thing as rare as real tears," and "It is only with imaginative minds, in truth, that sorrows of the spirit are enduring." Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was an incredibly influential Scottish writer, perhaps best known for "Rob Roy" (1817) and "Ivanhoe" (1819). Victor Hugo, the Brontës, George Eliot, Jane Austen, and nearly every other novelist of the 19th century directly alluded to Scott in their fiction and/or counted him as an influence. This volume was completed by J.G. Lockhart, Scott's son-in-law, who was best known for his 7-volume "The Life of Sir Walter Scott," from which material was likely borrowed in this text. Read more about Montgomery's honeymoon tour in Scotland, and some of the Scott-related stops she made.

: The Heart of a Garden; Scans used with permission from Smithsonian Libraries., contemporaneous, 'The Heart of a Garden' is a multigenre celebration of gardens. Vivid descriptions and imaginative walks through Watson's garden beds are interspersed with poetry, photographs, and allusions to other literature. Like some of her other garden books, Montgomery was given a copy of 'The Heart of a Garden' by G.B. Macmillan. In an unpublished portion of a letter to MacMillan from a 8 January 1908, Montgomery told him “I think you come the nearest to anybody I know to ‘inspiration’ in choosing your Xmas gifts with regard to the recipient’s taste. If you had ransacked a continent you couldn’t have found anything that would have given me more pleasure than ‘The Heart of A Garden.’” A few days later, Montgomery told her journal that "One of my Christmas gifts was a delightful volume entitled 'The Heart of a Garden' It consists of a series of essays by a woman who loved her garden and is illustrated by several photographs of beautiful old gardens. I revelled in it. One of my dearest wishes is to have a garden--a real garden. I shall never have my ideal garden--it would require more land and money than I shall likely ever have at my disposal, not to speak of a hundred years history behind it. But I do hope I shall be able some day to have some sort of a garden where I can at least grow all the flowers I want" (12 Jan. 1908, The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery The PEI Years, 1901–1911, p. 181). Montgomery did, of course, make and maintain multiple gardens later in life. The author of this book, Rosamund Watson (1860-1911), wrote extensively on the subject in verse and essay. Watson was also an art and literary critic and magazine columnist. Early in her career, she published under various male-coded pseudonyms like "Rushworth Armytage" and "Graham R. Tomson," using the surnames of her first two husbands who she (scandalously, at the time) divorced. Andrew Lang (folklorist, critic, and writer of the influential Lang's Fairy Books) raved about "Tomson's" first collection of poetry, assuming the author to be a man. Watson later befriended Lang, Oscar Wilde, and other popular writers of the 1890s. One additional contextual note from scholar Abigail Chandler, University of Massachusetts Lowell: "Montgomery's reading of 'The Heart of the Garden' in 1908 may have contributed to an exchange between Anne Shirley Blythe and Susan Baker years later in 'Anne of Ingleside.' Watson, like Montgomery, preferred the older perennial flowers to the annual flowers that become popular in the late nineteenth century. Watson writes that she has 'nothing but sheer aversion from the huge, bloated and blotched calceolarias that [her gardener] would dearly delight to honour' (62). In 'Anne of Ingleside,' Anne is returning home to Ingleside after a visit to Green Gables. She confides to Diana that she is dreading finding a way to praise Susan's calceolarias which to Anne 'don't look like flowers to me at all. But I never hurt Susan's feelings by telling her so' (Ch. 2). The moment of crisis is averted when Susan asks whether Anne has 'noticed the calceolarias' which allows Anne to reply that she 'never saw such calceolarias in my life, Susan. How do you manage it?' Internally, Anne reflects 'there, I've made Susan happy and haven't told a fib. I never did see such calceolarias ... thank heaven!' (Ch. 3). To read more about calceolarias, see this Missouri Botanical Gardens page.

: George Eliot's Life; Scans used with permission from Cornell University Library., contemporaneous, Montgomery first notes that she read (what was most likely) this famous biography of Eliot in September of 1895. Montgomery admired Eliot, calling the author's "Adam Bede" (1859) "another cup of mingled pain and pleasure, bitter and sweet. It is a powerful book, with an inartistic ending. Her delineation of character is a thing before which a poor scribbler might well throw down her pen in despair" ("The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1901-1911," p. 68). Years later, she said "George Eliot had a way of saying things uncomfortably true" ("L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals, The Ontario Years, 1918-1921," p. 238). George Eliot was the pen name of English writer Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880). Eliot's novels, including "The Mill on the Floss" (1860), "Silas Marner" (1861), and "Middlemarch" (1871/2), greatly influenced Victorian literature. While she also worked as an editor and a poet, her novels helped establish her as a serious writer of fiction. This volume was edited by her second husband and the selected pages here show just a snippet of Eliot's rich life.

: The Passing Show; Scans provided by, and used with permission of, Mary Beth Cavert., association, Montgomery’s copy of Wenzell’s “The Passing Show” was inscribed by her in 1904. The book is a collection of illustrations by A.B. Wenzell, whose work could be found regularly in magazines like “The Saturday Evening Post” and the “Ladies Home Journal.” The book is considered an “elephant folio,” meaning it is about 58 centimeters (23 inches) tall, and thus, it features large, high-quality reproductions of Wenzell’s work. His drawings depict upper class courtship, flirtatious couples, and parties, with all the elaborate fashions and decor of the day; his work gently (and beautifully) underscores the performative “show” of the rich. Two epigraphs appear at the start of the book, one from Michel de Montaigne’s essays: “Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre.” The other, from Shakespeare’s “As You LIke It,” “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” (II, VII, 139). You can view some of Wenzell's work here.

: The Dalehouse Murder; Scans provided by, and used with permission of, Mary Beth Cavert., association, Francis Everton is the pen name of Francis Edward Stokes (1883-1956), who wrote six mystery novels between 1927 and 1936. His books were notable because of their focus on the psychological and mental state of his characters. “The Dalehouse Murder,” the first of his mysteries, takes place at a British country estate hosting a lawn tennis tournament. When one of the young players who had gathered at the estate is found dead (by poison), the book follows Detective Inspector Allport and the other young people as they work to find the killer. Chapter titles include “Dr. Hanson’s Case-Book,” “On the Landing at Midnight,” and “Accident or —--?” Montgomery was a fan of mysteries, and she read (and reread) her Agatha Christie books, enjoying the escapism they offered. This copy of the book was found in Norval, Ontario, where Montgomery lived from 1926 until 1935. It was given to Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Waterston in 1985, and later to Mary Beth Cavert. You can read the full text of “The Dalehouse Murder” here, and it is available as an audiobook from multiple sources as well.

: The Trail of the Ragged Robin; Scans provided by, and used with permission of, Mary Beth Cavert., association, "The Trail of the Ragged Robin" is the third of Flora Klickmann's "Flower-Patch" books. This copy was, as the inscription notes, given to Montgomery by her pen pal George MacMillan for Christmas in 1924. He writes "To Mrs. L.M. Macdonald, hoping that this 'trail' may lead to The Land of Happy Hours." Whether Montgomery drew (and tried to smudge out?) her signature cat on the inscription page is unknown. MacMillan's hope, however, did come true, as Montgomery noted her love of Klickmann's books multiple times. See the first volume here. In this third volume, we can also see passages that Montgomery marked. On page 145 she has marked the lines "But here and there are souls who still stretch out hands for things that allow of no concrete measurement," just after a passage about "Nature" she has also highlighted. On page 306, she has marked a couple of lines about the smell of freshly-cut firewood that transports one "to the dim, silent woods, steeped in the fragrance of which only the conifers and cedars know the secret."

: The Works of William Shakespeare; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, This is Montgomery’s copy of “The Works of William Shakespeare.” She did not inscribe it with her name or date, nor does it have a clear publication date, so it is unclear if this was Montgomery’s first or only copy of his works. Either way, browsing this volume reveals a wealth of annotations, markings, and most remarkable of all, scrapbooking. Montgomery tucked and pasted illustrations, paintings, and photos of actors that played famous characters throughout the book. On the back of the title page, she has pasted an image of Shakespeare (it appears to be the portrait attributed to John Taylor c. 1610) that she had cut out of a magazine, and the following pages include cut-outs of Shakespeare’s birthplace. The first play in the volume is “The Tempest,” and into its pages Montgomery has tucked multiple drawings and illustrations of Prospero, Miranda, and Ferdinand, illustrating different scenes and moments in different styles. She took time to cut out illustrations of Puck, Petruchio, Caesar, and others. On page 621, she has included a photo of well-known actress Adelaide Neilson as Juliet. Neilson played many leads in Shakespeare productions in London and New York through the 1870s. On page 581, Montgomery included a picture of Sarah Bernhardt as Lady Macbeth. While some of her in-book scrapbooking might appear haphazard (see the unsigned postcard, perhaps used as a bookmark, from page 200), much of it is clearly deliberate and carefully included. On page 167, in Act 3, scene II of “The Taming of the Shrew,” she has left a photo of an unnamed actress with the caption “I see a woman may be made a fool, if she has not the spirit to resist.” Montgomery has left the photo on the very page where the line appears. In addition to illustrations, Montgomery has also annotated the text. Multiple pages show her underlining or bracketing lines. Given that every novel she wrote alludes to or quotes Shakespeare at some point, it is fascinating to see her encounters with the original text. For example, on page 110, she has drawn a line next to Lysander’s lines in Act I, Scene I of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” where he says “The course of true love never did run smooth.” The line appears, comically altered by Father Cassidy, as “the path of genius never did run smooth” in Montgomery’s “Emily of New Moon” (1923). You can explore the Shakespeare references in “Anne of Green Gables” here.

: The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, This is Montgomery's own copy of Longfellow's poems, inscribed "L.M. Montgomery Feb. 22nd 1896." She purchased this volume, at age 21, with prize money she won from a newspaper writing contest. The "Halifax Evening Mail" offered a prize of $5 for the best letter in response to the question "Which as the more patience under the ordinary cares and trials of life--man or woman?" In response, Montgomery first wrote a short allegory, but when a friend of a friend suggested it wouldn't win, she decided to write a humorous verse instead. The poem argues that while men have "some" patience, it is women who have most "all-round patiences." She signed the verse "Belinda Bluegrass." A week later she noted that she "went uptown [in Halifax] to invest my 'Mail' prize money today. I wanted to get something I could keep always and not get tired of, so I got Tennyson, Longfellow, Whittier, and Byron. They are nicely bound and I've always longed to have them of my own" (see "The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The P.E.I. Years," Volume 1, pp. 311-314). Much like her copy of the works of Shakespeare, Montgomery has, over time, pasted or tipped in various clippings and images throughout the book. Inside the cover is a photo of Longfellow himself, but later in the book Montgomery has added photos of the "Wayside Inn" and other sites along with illustrations of various scenes. Many of these images were likely from serialized or magazine-published versions of the poems. References to Longfellow abound in Montgomery's journals, letters, and fiction. "Anne of Green Gables" references his "Maidenhood" (see page 482 above; the first bracketed stanza inspired the title of chapter 31) and "The Reaper and the Flowers." After that, most of her other novels, particularly those in the "Anne" series, contain a reference to a Longfellow poem included in this volume.

: The Poetical Works of Lord Byron; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Finding where Montgomery read, quoted, or alluded to the work of Lord Byron is easy. Every volume of her journal and her letters and many of her novels cite Byron somewhere. His long poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” is the most frequently referenced (note all the passages she marked in the book above!). She used his lines “‘Tis pleasant sure to see one’s name in print / A book’s a book although there’s nothing in it” from “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” (a satirical poem about the relationship between writers and reviewers) to celebrate the publication of her essay “A Western Eden” in the “Prince Albert Times” in 1891 (see “The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years, 1889-1900, eds. Rubio and Waterston, p. 72). Byron was a giant of the Romantic moment in literature, and his work was taught, studied, and celebrated throughout the 19th century and beyond. Excerpts of his work appear in multiple volumes of the “Royal Readers” that were used in Canadian schools; they are likely where Montgomery first read his work. This copy of the works of Byron was gifted to Montgomery by her pen pal George Macmillian in 1912, probably replacing the copy she had purchased with her essay prize money in 1896. The inscription reads “To Mrs. Ewen Macdonald, with sincere good wishes for Yuletide and the New Year. GBM. Christmas, 1912.” In her January 1912 letter to Macmillan, she wrote “Firstly, due thanks for the delightful little book you sent me at Xmas. It is charming all through. The picture of that delightful, suggestive, tantalizing gate in the frontispiece, is one of the dearest things I’ve seen for a long time. I think I shall have to write a poem on it.” [image of frontispiece forthcoming!] Montgomery has left carets, lines, and brackets throughout the book, along with an interesting array of illustrations and images. On page 817, she has circled the mention of Hector Macneil and added a note "A second cousin of my great-great-grandfather John Macneil L.M.M." Note that in Byron, Montgomery has included many *photos* of the places–Italy, Greece, Switzerland–mentioned, while in some of her other volumes, she has included more illustrations and drawings. She has also tucked an entire article about Byron from the "Bookman" magazine into the pages. Note, too, Montgomery's dated comment on page 180. In the middle of "The Age of Bronze," a political poem about land barons, Montgomery has written "Yes. 1918." next to the lines "May we hope the same / For outworn Europe?"

: The Poetical Works of Wordsworth; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, William Wordsworth (1770–1850) was a founding poet of the Romantic movement. In this, Montgomery’s copy of his collected works, inscribed in 1897, his works are divided into sections like “Poems Founded on the Affections,” “Poems of the Fancy,” and “Poems of the Imagination.” Montgomery has left brackets, underlines, and comments throughout the volume, and she has commented “Beautiful” in response to a few poems like, “Evening Ode” and “The Pass of Kirkstone.” She has also tucked and pasted in photos of the Lake District that Wordsworth called home, photos of Wordsworth’s grave—which she had visited on her honeymoon in 1911—and newspaper clippings about various Wordsworth publications and topics. Montgomery alluded to Wordsworth multiple times throughout her work, often tucking short (perhaps half-remembered) allusions to his poems throughout commonplace entries in her journals. The works of many of the Romantic poets became a sort of shorthand for Montgomery, and she quoted lines or phrases frequently. But one particular poem of Wordsworths, in this volume on page 313, became a frequent touchstone for her. Montgomery referenced his “Ode: Intimations on Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” multiple times. Montgomery has underlined the first and the last lines of the poem (read the full text of the poem here). She first mentions this particular Ode in her journal in September of 1894, even before she acquired this volume. Later, this ode supplied the phrase “the glory and the dream,” which she used as the title to Chapter 36 of ’Anne of Green Gables’. Montgomery later cited “the glory and the dream” in other letters and journal entries. On a walk with her friend Nora Lefurgey, in Norval, Ontario in 1932, Montgomery wrote that the pair “discussed every subject on earth from the lightest to the most profound. When we exhausted earth we adventured to the heavens, to the remotest secrets of ‘island universes.’ Sometimes we quoted poetry. Nora would voice the first line of a couplet and I would finish it. Once in this alternate way we recited the whole of Wordsworth’s ‘Ode on the Intimations of Immortality,’ lingering on the lines, ‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting etc.’ Our minds seemed to strike sparks from each other. It was so easy to be witty and brilliant. We opened doors of memory long closed. We looked again on faded joys and dim old griefs that had once been agonies.” She recounted this episode again in a letter to George MacMillan, dwelling on the ways the poem reflects the passage of time and the accumulation of memories.

: The Complete Poetical Works of John Keats; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Montgomery’s longest journal entry about Keats might seem surprising at first. On July 11, 1909, Montgomery recorded a long entry about finally reading the entirety of this very volume (note her inscription above, "March 30, 1909"). She says, “To-day I finished reading Keats’ poems. I got the book in March and have been reading so many pages per day ever since. On the whole, I do not like Keats. Perhaps if I had known him in childhood I might have grown up with him as to love him, tinging his lines with the hues of my own life as I lived it. But I did not and he comes to me too late. It is not because I find his poems lacking in beauty that they leave me indifferent. They are, in reality, _too full of beauty_. One feels stifled in roses and longs for a breath of frosty air of the austerity of a mountain peak towering to the stars. There is little in Keats’ poems except luscious beauty–so much of it that the reader is surfeited. At least, that is how they affected me. This is not to say that Keats has _no_ lines that appeal to me. I found them rarely but some I did find, and for those few rare lines I admit him a great poet–and he would have been as great a poet if he had never written anything except those lines.” She goes on to cite a few of those most affecting lines. From his “Endymion,” she recorded “He ne’er is crowned / With immortality who fears to follow / Where airy voices lead” and then she spends a few lines in her journal reflecting on whether and how one should follow those voices (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ Volume I, p. 235-6). She clearly read the volume with a pencil in her hand, underlining and marking stanzas as she went. She underlined the first, famous, line of "Endymion," "A thing of beauty is a joy forever," and she underlined the line on page 115 about following where those "airy voices lead." But one particular line of Keats’--not one that she marked in the volume itself--clearly stuck with her in the decades after this first reading. Montgomery quotes from the penultimate stanza of his “Ode to a Nightingale,” in _seven_ of her novels (Kilmeny of the Orchard, Anne of Island, Anne’s House of Dreams, Emily Climbs, Magic for Marigold, Anne of Windy Poplars, and Jane of Lantern Hill). The lines: “Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam / Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.”

: Ramona; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., contemporaneous, Donated by Emily Woster

: Rhymes of a Red Cross Man; L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection., contemporaneous, Donated by Emily Woster

: Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush; contemporaneous, Donated by Emily Woster, Ian Maclaren’s _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_ is a collection of short stories set in the small village of Drumtochty, Scotland. The titles of the stories, such as “The Transformation of Lachland Campbell,” and “A Doctor of the Old School,” might remind Montgomery readers of some of _her_ story titles, with their focus on local drama and individual character growth. But it is the contents of the stories that drew Montgomery in when she first read it. On 8 November 1905, Montgomery told her journal, “I have been reading ‘The Bonnie Brier Bush’ all the evening–and crying over it. I am not to be pitied for those tears, however, for there was no bitterness in them. They were born of a certain pleasure in the sweetness and pathos of the tales–simple, wholesome tales, like a sweep of upland wind of the tang of a fir wood on a frosty night” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ Volume II, p. 139). A few years prior, Montgomery had written and delivered a paper on Maclaren at Dalhousie (see her journal entry of 1 December 1895). A contemporary review of the book, from “The Spectator” of 2 March 1895 noted that “No one can lay down this book…without feeling that…he has been made to laugh often.” The book was a massive bestseller throughout the 1890s and early 1900s, but then fell out of fashion. Montgomery, however, never forgot it. In a journal entry from 24 January 1932, Montgomery reflected on Maclaren’s works again. “I re-read the Bonnie Brier Bush and Auld Land Syne [note the ad for this other title inside this volume] some of these sleepless nights and forgot my worries in the old charm. What delightful books they are! What a good taste they leave in your mouth! You feel after all that there are some decent people in the world (‘L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930-1933,’ pp 213-24). In a subsequent letter to her pen pal Ephraim Weber, she copied out the same sentiment. “So several nights last winter when I could not sleep I read Ian McLaren [sic]’s Bonnie Brier Bush and Auld Lang Syne, which took the literary world of the 90s by storm. Quite likely you have never read them. I would not think you incredibly ignorant if you have never heard of them. One seldom sees even a reference to them nowadays. Yet they were--and are--delightful books. …I love them! They leave such a good taste in my mouth. I feel after all that there are some decent people in the world-that folks are not all Elmer Gantrys. It is odd to imagine William Maclure [the “Doctor of the Old School” in Maclaren] and Elmer Gantry [Sinclair Lewis’ eponymous “failed preacher”] in the same world. Yet they both exist. But it is much pleasanter to keep book-company with Maclure. Those tales of Scottish rural life have oddly the same flavor as the Cavendish of my childhood, the memory of which is like a silvery moonlight in my recollections" (“After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery’s Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916-1941, pp. 204-5). You can read the full text of this novel in facsimile here or in text here.

: The Royal Readers No VI; contemporaneous, Thomas Nelson and Sons began publishing the Royal Readers and a companion “Royal School” series in 1877. The Readers were used (and adapted and revised for) schools across the Commonwealth well into the 20th century. The Readers include 8 volumes beginning with an “Infant Reader” and a “Primer” for young children learning to read, each text increasing in difficulty and depth until this, “No. 6,” the final volume. This volume, published in Halifax by a Nelson partner in 1887, was likely very close to the edition Montgomery herself would have used in school. The Readers include a variety of works from classic literature–both poetry and prose–alongside exercises and lessons in usage and punctuation, short essays on history and culture, and miscellaneous allegories and fables. This 6th Reader, as the Table of Contents shows, introduced Montgomery to many a text, like Scott’s long poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’, that she remembered, reread, or alluded to in her fiction. In addition, Montgomery’s scrapbook outlines the English portion of the entrance examination to Prince of Wales College, which she sat for in 1893. Students were asked to prepare for the exam by studying the first 200 pages of this very Reader (see the timetable for the exam that Montgomery pasted into her scrapbook here). Recitation pieces like ‘Bingen on the Rhine’ and ‘Edinburgh after Flodden’ appear in ‘Anne of Green Gables,’ where she gave the the former title, to Gilbert Blythe to recite in chapter 19’s Debating Club concert. You can peruse pages of others in the Reader series here.

: The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley; association, It is perhaps surprising that Montgomery’s volume of the poems of Percy Shelley, inscribed in 1912, contains very few annotations or markings from Montgomery and just a single tucked in illustration. It would be easy to assume, given Montgomery’s love of other poets from the Romantic movement like Wordsworth, that she would have engaged with Shelley more fully. Researcher and editor Rea Wilmshurst noted that Montgomery may have referenced Shelley’s work just once, only obliquely, in her fiction. Wilmshurst took note of where Montgomery used the phrase “wild and fitful” to describe the quality of light in a church in chapter 21 of ‘The Golden Road’. Shelley’s “Melody to a Scene of Former Time” includes the lines “'Tis night — what faint and distant scream / Comes on the wild and fitful blast?” Whether Montgomery included this echo is impossible to know, but the phrase is certainly the kind descriptive note to which she would be drawn. The illustration she tucked into this volume, however, is titled ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci,’ a poem by John Keats not Shelley. Perhaps the illustration was meant to end up in her volume of Keats, but the similar spines of the two books, both published by Crowell in New York, made her mistake one for the other. Montgomery liked beautiful, well-bound books, so perhaps her matching Crowell volumes, even with their different colored covers, were shelved together., Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection.

: Trilby; contemporaneous, George DuMaurier (1834-1896) first became famous as a cartoonist for ‘Punch’ magazine, where he satirized Victorian society and politics. When his eyesight began to deteriorate he turned to writing stories and novels. His most popular text by far was, ‘Trilby,’ first published as a serial in ‘Harper’s Monthly’ in 1894 and later collected into a single volume. The book was a massive best-seller, guiding readers’ conceptions of its setting, Bohemian Paris, for years after its publication. The story follows three British artists making their way in Paris; they meet titular model Trilby O’Ferrall, who falls under the influence of the hypnotist, Svengali (depicted through a stereotypical, antisemitic lens). Note the symbolic spider's web on the cover that alludes to Trilby's dilemma. The book inspired a phase of “Trilbymania” in readers, which in turn spawned consumer products with Trilby themes, like clothing (see: Trilby hats), and adaptations for stage and screen. Also of note, George DuMaurier was the grandfather of other literary icons. Five of his grandsons, children of his daughter Sylvia, inspired J.M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan,’ and another granddaughter was none other than Daphne DuMaurier, famed writer of the novel ‘Rebecca’ and short stories like ‘The Birds.’ You can peruse all pages of 'Trilby' here or read just the text here. Montgomery read this novel multiple times in her youth, noting in her journal that the three artists in the story were friends to her. On 20 Dec. 1904 she wrote, “I have been re-reading ‘Trilby’ this evening–it matches the night somehow–that dear delightful book where three of my very dearest friends live–’Taffy’ and ‘The Laird,’ and ‘Little Billee.’ It has made me quite happy for the time being.” She went on to comment on the lines that end the story, “And the verses that end it were, with one exception, written for me……The exception is in the second verse. It should be cut out for me. There is no love in my life–nor ever will be, I suppose.” (CJ II, 115, Dec. 20, 1904) The novel ends with “A little work, a little play / To keep us going—and so, good-day! / A little warmth, a little light / Of love's bestowing—and so, good-night! / A little fun, to match the sorrow / Of each day's growing—and so, good-morrow! / A little trust that when we die / We reap our sowing! And so—good-bye!” At the time Montgomery wrote this journal entry, she was just 20 years old. She had spent all but a few months of the preceding six years at home with her grandmother., L.M. Montgomery Institute., Donated by Emily Woster.

: The Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., Montgomery's copy of Coleridge's poems includes her inscription inside the front cover, various kinds of annotations on the pages, and a variety of clippings and illustrations that she tucked into the book. Note that on the back of one of the illustrations of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (Pogany's "The Upper Air Burst Into Life") that Montgomery has cut from a magazine is the text of an article on "African Game Trails" by Theodore Roosevelt. Coleridge (1772-1834) is considered one of the founders of the Romantic Movement, and his poems influenced many famous poets who came after, including others that will make their way onto the Bookshelf. Montgomery references his "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" in "Anne of the Island" (1915), "Anne's House of Dreams" (1917), and "Anne of Windy Poplars" (1936). Most interesting here, however, are the bracketed lines on page 297 above. Montgomery has marked the end of the first stanza of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan." These are the same lines quoted by Walter Blythe in chapter 11 of "Rainbow "Valley" (1919). Una Meredith is reflecting on how much she likes Walter's "book talk" and notes that "Walter had been reading his Coleridge that day, and he pictured a heaven where 'There were gardens bright with sinuous rills / Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree, / And there were forests ancient as the hills / Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.'" Mary Vance, ever the pragmatist, replies, "I didn't know there was any woods in heaven....I thought it was all streets--and streets--and streets." The Blythe children go on to debate whether their "Bible language" is more figurative than literal. In the end, Faith notes that "We _know_ just as much, but Walter can _imagine_," suggesting that the flight of fancy inspired by Coleridge's image is a fitting complement to plain knowledge.

: Pride and Prejudice; Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Like any good reader of her time, Montgomery read Jane Austen. While Montgomery doesn’t talk much about the novels in her journals or fiction, she clearly engaged with the text. Note the two bracketed passages in her copy of Pride and Prejudice. First, she has marked Charlotte Lucas’ comment that, “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least.” Second, she marked Mr. Darcy’s assertion that “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.” Readers of Montgomery’s life and novels will surely find various meanings in those two annotations. Finally, Montgomery’s copies of two of Jane Austen’s novels, both this “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma” reveal more than meets the eye. On the surface, the two volumes appear like a perfect matched set with gilt, ruby covers. But closer inspection shows that Montgomery acquired (or at least inscribed) her copy of Pride and Prejudice in 1904, and her Emma in 1912. Clearly, she sought out these matching editions to complete her library.

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