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LMM Bookshelf Project
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- Emma
- 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 had read Jane Austen. While Montgomery doesn’t talk much about the novels in her journals or fiction, she does reference it once. In a journal entry from November 24, 1924, Montgomery notes that she is sick of everything –she’s sick of the battles and discussions over church union, sick of Sunday School planning, and sick of being ill, as she had been through the fall. “There are some things I am not sick of however and one of them is Jane Austen’s novels. I’ve been reading Emma. When I think of it and Flaming Youth [a 1923 novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams] the contrast is as between a mad-house and a decent home.” (‘L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922–1925, p. 300). Finally, Montgomery’s copies of two of Jane Austen’s novels, both this “Emma” and her : “Pride and Prejudice” 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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- Mansfield Park
- Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, While the covers of Montgomery’s copy of Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’ is much plainer than her editions of ‘Emma’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ the title page reveals that this edition was printed by the same publisher, with the same decoration as the others. As more books are added to the Bookshelf, you’ll see that many were published by Dent and Sons in New York, suggesting that Montgomery either preferred their bindings and style, or that the booksellers she purchased from kept Dent books in stock. Either way, Montgomery’s ‘Mansfield Park,’ inscribed by Montgomery in 1916, reveals no annotations but two pasted-in illustrations. The first is a rendering of Jane Austen, clipped from a magazine and pasted to the end of the ‘Bibliography’ section of the book. The second, an illustration of “Fanny Price’s Arrival” is tipped/pasted into the corresponding page of the novel, as if Montgomery was illustrating the volume herself. Note that similar kinds of illustrations, down to their formatting and font, are pasted in other books on Montgomery's shelves. Perhaps these clippings came from the the same magazines over the years. See her 'Works of Shakespeare,' for example.
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- Pickwick Papers
- Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Montgomery loved the works of Charles Dickens, and she returned to his novels often. In 1905, she told her journal that she “also bought and re-read ‘Pickwick Papers’ [see the inscription inside the cover of this volume] and ‘David Copperfield.’ I first read the immortal ‘Papers’ when a child–there was an old racked, coverless copy lying around the house and I revelled in it. I remember that it was a book that always made me hungry–there was so much ‘good eating’ in it, and the folks were always celebrating with ham and eggs and ‘milk punch.’ I generally went on a cupboard rummage after I had been reading ‘Pickwick’ for a little while” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ Volume I, p. 129). She later gives Philippa Gorden the same thought in Chapter 20 of ‘Anne of the Island’ (1915). “What are you reading?” she asked Anne. “Pickwick” was Anne’s reply. “That’s a book that always makes me hungry,” said Phil. “There’s so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be reveling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick. The mere thought reminds me that I’m starving. Is there any tidbit in the pantry, Queen Anne?” But despite her love of the book, and its tendency to make her want a snack, Montgomery tucked a bit of a different Dickens story throughout. As you browse this volume, you’ll find scans (front and back, note the columns of magazine text) of various clippings and illustrations, all from “A Christmas Carol” rather than “Pickwick.” Perhaps this volume was a good place to store such clippings if she didn’t have a bound volume of the Christmas story, or perhaps she meant to remove these scraps at some point to place them elsewhere. Regardless, these preserved clippings speak clearly to Montgomery’s attachment to his writing.
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- David Copperfield
- Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, Montgomery cited phrases and characters from Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield’ in three of her own novels. Character names are cited in both ‘Anne of the Island’ and ‘Magic for Marigold’ (Uriah Heep and Mrs. Gummage, respectively). In ‘Emily Climbs,’ Emily tells her diary about the evening that “Aunt Ruth found me reading David Copperfield and crying over Davy's alienation from his mother, with a black rage against Mr. Murdstone in my heart. She must know why I was crying and wouldn't believe me when I told her.” Aunt Ruth replies, with shock, “Crying over people who never existed!” Emily, and no doubt Maud, too, tells her “Oh, but they _do_ exist, … Why, they are as real as you are, Aunt Ruth. Do you mean to say that Miss Betsy Trotwood is a delusion?” Dickens’ characters were even real enough to Montgomery that she used many of their names as shorthand descriptions of other people in her real life. For example, when reflecting on the Canadian Church Union Bill in her journal in 1924, she notes “It won’t please anybody. But a good deal of water will flow under the bridges in two years and the ghost of Mr. Micawber broods over the troubled waters” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The Ontario Years 1922–1925, p. 247). Mr. Micawber, of course, is known for his incessantly optimistic, if often misguided, sense that “something will turn up.” But besides her clear connection to the characters, Montgomery just adored Dickens' works and ‘David Copperfield' in particular, listing it among her favourites in various interviews. In Hoffman’s ‘Fiction Writers on Fiction Writing’ she noted that “No book do I love as I love David Copperfield. Yet during my many re-readings I must have wept literal quarts over David’s boyish tribulations” (p. 160). Scanned here are the pages that Montgomery underlined and an illustration she tucked into this treasured volume.
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- The Tiger in the House
- L.M. Montgomery Institute., contemporaneous, Montgomery’s love of cats is well-documented. She took dozens and dozens of photos of her dearest feline friends, tufts of their hair are pasted into her scrapbooks alongside other mementos and keepsakes, and there is, of course, Montgomery’s iconic cat drawing next to her signature. It is no wonder then that she found Carl Van Vechten’s ‘The Tiger in the House’ an absorbing read. On 21 April 1921 she told her journal: “..after I got the boys to bed I curled up on my own bed with a bag of chocolates and read ‘The Tiger in the House’ until I forgot all about the woes of the flesh. It’s a very fascinating book, all about cats by a man who loves them. Some of it made my blood run cold.” The book is a history of domesticated cats in culture, in literature, art, music, myth, and the occult (no doubt the latter chapter contains the stories that made Maud’s “blood run cold”). ‘The Tiger in the House’ also contains a number of drawings, illustrations, and photographs, showing famous and infamous cats by equally famous or infamous artists, or cats in their most graceful and their most humorous states. Montgomery’s journal entry goes on to discuss some of her history with cats. “Grandfather and Grandmother [Macneill] hated cats. I always loved them. Just where I got my fondness for them would be hard to say since my ‘forbears’ [sic] on both sides, back to the third generation at least, detested them. But love them I did.” She says she was “rather surprised and pleased to learn” from the book “how many eminent and admirable individuals of both sexes were lovers of puss” including Dickens, Scott, Charlotte Bronte, Poe, Twain, and a host of others. Learning that he loved cats even raised her opinion of historian Thomas Carlyle (L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1918-1921). The author, Carl Van Vechten was a writer and photographer, best known as a (sometimes controversial) patron of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition to writing a variety of novels, essays, and articles, he was a famed photographer of important figures in theatre, art, and literature, and his works have been displayed and reprinted constantly. He also was close colleagues with publisher Alfred A. Knopf, and he served as literary executor for Gertrude Stein. Read and peruse the full text of the book full text of the book here.
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- Rob Roy
- Scans provided by and used with permission of Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. From the L.M. Montgomery Collection., association, It is hard to overstate the influence of Sir Walter Scott on L.M. Montgomery. Montgomery read, re-read, commented on, alluded to, or cited Scott throughout her life and throughout her own work. This volume, perhaps the first edition of ‘Rob Roy’ she owned herself, was inscribed in November of 1906, but she noted in her autobiographical essay, ‘The Alpine Path’ that along with Dickens’ ‘Pickwick Papers’ and Bulwer Lytton’s ‘Zanoni,’ ‘Rob Roy’ was the only other novel in the house when she grew up. Montgomery was once asked to answer the question, “What are the greatest Books in the English language?” She answered that it would be easier to come up with a list of “twenty novels I like most” but “when you ask me to name the six favorites, you put me in the position of the mother of ten children who is asked which three she loves best. She could not tell you and neither can I.” However, she rises to the task. She narrows to six based on the books whose characters are, to her, “more intensely alive and real than in any others.” Her list? 1. David Copperfield. 2. Pickwick Papers. 3. The Mill on the Floss. 4. Vanity Fair. 5. Jane Eyre, and 6. Rob Roy (see “What are the greatest Books in the English language?” in ‘The L.M. Montgomery Reader Vol. One: A Life in Print,’ ed. Lefebvre, p. 152). Scott’s highly romanticized version of the life of the Scottish folk hero, pops up again and again. Montgomery cites or mentions it in ‘Anne of Green Gables’ (1908), ‘The Story Girl (1911), ‘Emily of New Moon’ (1923), ‘Magic for Marigold (1929), and in ‘Jane of Lantern Hill’ (1937). The clippings she left in this volume reflect that re-reading, as there are unrelated postcards and a variety of snippets and essays included from various magazines or newspapers. In 1908, when she was rereading many of Scott’s novels, Montgomery told her journal, “Splendid old Scott! His magic never fails. After a surfeit of glittering, empty, modern fiction I always come back to him as to some tried old journal who never fails to charm. What a delight the few novels of Scott which I could get to read in early life were to me! There was one around the house–an old paper-bound Rob Roy–over which I pored until I read it to pieces …To me, Scott’s novels are blent with the brightest memories of those old days and so have the added charm of old associations” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ 1901–1911, p. 203).
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- Poems of Passion
- Donated by Emily Woster., In her first journal entry after her long one that recounted her time in Bedeque and her attachment to Herman Leard, Montgomery noted that she had been profoundly lonely. She wrote, however, that she still had books “those unfailing keys to a world of enchantment.” She recorded reading multiple things, including Sienkiewicz’s ‘Quo Vadis’ and some J.M Barrie. Montgomery told her journal that she had “sent for Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s ‘Poems of Passion’ this spring. They seem to be written for me. I have _lived_ them every word” (‘The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery, The PEI Years,’ 1889–1900, p. 414). Wilcox (1850–1918) was a prolific American poet, whose name is perhaps less well-known today than is her famous line, "Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone,” from her poem “Solitude.” This volume, ‘Poems of Passion’ was the first of nine volumes of poetry she published in her lifetime. 'Poems of Passion' (full text available for reading here) contains works that are personal, introspective, and emotional—perhaps even melodramatic to modern readers. There are poems about the passage of time, about remembering people from one’s past, and about all forms of love, clearly reflective of Montgomery’s mood in 1898., L.M. Montgomery Institute., contemporaneous
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- The Heart of the Ancient Wood
- L.M. Montgomery Institute., contemporaneous
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- Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion
- L.M. Montgomery Institute., contemporaneous, In her journal entry of 18 September 1922, Montgomery noted that she had “been reading Emile Coue’s book on ‘Suggestion.’ I can hardly believe in its miracles. If one could make oneself well and good by repeating over and over before going to sleep the mystic formula ‘every day in every way I am growing better and better’ why couldn’t one make oneself perfect or immortal? Still, I have proved in my own experiments that there is a great power in suggestion.” French pharmacist/psychologist Emile Coué’s (1857–1926) work was a sensation in his time, though contemporary readers might only have heard of his famous mantra. Coué believed that one could use daily, repeated affirmations and “suggestion” to influence one’s subconscious mind, and he believed this suggestion was powerful enough to influence psychological and even physical health. Montgomery’s comments reveal that she had deep skepticism in his idea (“why couldn’t one make oneself perfect or immortal?”), but she also admits in its power. She went on to explain that “I believe I have cured Chester of some annoying little nervous habits—blinking his eyes and tapping his teeth with nail of his forefinger for example—by bending over him every night after he had gone to sleep and suggesting to him aloud, three times, that he wouldn’t do it anymore. At any rate the habits ceased abruptly after two or three nights. The headaches, too, from which he has suffered for years seem to have almost disappeared. Perhaps it was my ‘suggestion’—perhaps he is simply growing out of them. One cannot _prove_ these things. I have been conducting a series of experiments on myself also but cannot as yet say whether they have affected anything or not. Some things happened—but then they might have happened anyway" (L.M. Montomery’s Complete Journals, The Ontario Years, 1922–1925, p. 55). Again, she notes that the method might, perhaps actually work, while suggesting that things might have happened how she wanted anyway. Her cautious mix of skepticism and optimism reflects, at least in part, modern psychologists’ views on “suggestion” and affirmations: that they can be useful in increasing positive self talk and internal dialogue, but the results are hard to measure given the variety of other factors in a person’s life and environment. If nothing else, Montgomery was participating in an early 20th-century societal fascination with psychology. The volume above contains both essays on his methods and reasoning, but also a variety of testimonials and stories from satisfied customers/patients who worked with Coué on suggestion, hypnotism, and even kinds of “séances” focused on affirmation. You can read the full text of the volume here.