L.M. Montgomery Research Group

Although the first two seasons of the television series Emily of New Moon were released on DVD by Echo Home Bridge Entertainment (season one in September 2008, season two in December 2009), these two seasons will be rereleased on DVD by Alliance Home Entertainment: season one on 20 April 2010, season two on 18 May 2010. Here’s hoping that the remaining two seasons will follow soon!

See the item for this at TVShowsonDVD.com.

Announcing the publication of Una of the Garden, a facsimile edition of a long-lost serial by L.M. Montgomery first published in in The Housekeeper in 1908–1909! Here is the official announcement from the L.M. Montgomery Institute:

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery’s third novel, Kilmeny of the Orchard. In celebration, the L.M. Montgomery Institute will release a facsimile edition of Una of the Garden, the story that evolved into the Kilmeny novel.

“Una of the Garden” was first published in serial format in The Housekeeper magazine in 1908–1909, but the scarcity of back issues of this magazine made Montgomery’s story inaccessible, until now. The facsimile edition booklet, reproduced from the holdings of the Ryrie-Campbell Collection at LMMI, offers a fascinating opportunity to experience Montgomery’s work within the context of the original magazine publication, including illustrations and advertisements. The booklet also provides insight about the transformation from the story to the novel.

Una of the Garden is edited by Donna J. Campbell and Simon Lloyd, with an introduction by Kate Macdonald Butler.

Proceeds from the sale of this publication will go directly to support the work of the L.M. Montgomery Institute.

Booklet Cost: $20 Canadian or US funds

Purchase Options:
~ L.M. Montgomery Institute General Store
(Available soon:  www.lmmontgomery.ca    PayPal accepted.)

~ L.M. Montgomery Conference held in PEI in June 2010

~ Email contact: campbell.walden@sympatico.ca
(Cash, Money Order, or Canadian $ cheque accepted.)

A recent “Industry News” column by Zoe Whittall appeared recently on the Quill & Quire website:

Penguin Canada has a number of foreign deals to report: … Hindi rights to the 100th Anniversary Edition of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery went to Penguin Books India; Shinchosha have acquired Japanese rights to The Blythes Are Quoted by L.M. Montgomery….

Also, Kerry Clare’s review of L.M. Montgomery by Jane Urquhart and The Blythes Are Quoted is now available on the Q&Q website.

The publication of The Blythes Are Quoted has been selected as one of the “10 biggest publishing stories of 2009″ on a CBC.ca news story:

Fans of the precocious, freckle-faced redhead from P.E.I. had reason to rejoice this year when an amended version of the final Anne Shirley stories was released under a new title, The Blythes Are Quoted. But the book’s additional 100 pages revealed a darker story – complete with references to adultery and suicide. Novelist Jane Urquhart ably provided a context for these bleak scenes in her comprehensive, unflinching biography of Anne’s author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne’s banner year ended with a triumphant Sotheby’s auction – proof that great CanLit never goes out of fashion.

See “The Year in Books” for the full story.

I will be interviewed on Ontario Today on Monday, 14 December 2009, sometime between 12:00 and 12:30, on CBC Radio One:

L.M. Montgomery’s last manuscript, The Blythes are Quoted, has just been published for the first time in its entirety. The manuscript was submitted to Montgomery’s publisher the day she died. It’s the ninth volume in the Anne series. The editor who re-discovered the typescript will be our guest on Ontario Today. And of course Ed Lawrence will join us as well.

UPDATED 15 DECEMBER 2009: The interview can be streamed from the Ontario Today website for the next thirty days.

To follow up on my earlier article “First-edition Anne Expected to Set Auction Record“: James Adams reports in today’s Globe and Mail that this copy sold at auction for $37,500:

A first-edition copy of the Canadian classic Anne of Green Gables was sold by Sotheby’s New York Friday afternoon for $37,500 (U.S.) – a live auction record for the famous debut novel by Lucy Maud Montgomery that originally retailed for $1.50.

Read the rest of the article here.

See also “Anne 1st-edition nets record $30K US at auction” on CBC News.

An article titled “A new job for Anne of Green Gables: selling beef to Japan” appeared in Tuesday’s Globe and Mail:

Enterprising farmers on Prince Edward Island are hoping to crack Japan’s stiffly competitive Wagyu beef market by using the lure of Anne Shirley, a revered figure to generations of Japanese women—the ones who decide what is served at weddings.

Read the rest of the article here.

I’ll be signing copies of The Blythes Are Quoted at the Lucy Maud Montgomery Museum located at Crawford’s Village Bakeshop in Norval, Ontario, on 12 December 2009 from 1:30 to 3:30 PM (more info), and also at the Kitchener Public Library in Kitchener, Ontario, on 16 December 2009 beginning at 6:30 PM (more info).

The second season of the television series Emily of New Moon will be released on DVD by Echo Bridge Home Entertainment on 29 December 2009! These thirteen episodes first aired on CBC more than ten years ago, from October 1998 to January 1999, and were filmed entirely on Prince Edward Island.

Included in the DVD set are all second-season episodes:

• 2.1/14: Summer of Sorrows
• 2.2/15: And So Shall They Reap
• 2.3/16: A Shadow in His Dream
• 2.4/17: Where Angels Fear To Tread
• 2.5/18: The Witches’ Spell Book
• 2.6/19: Rivers of Babylon
• 2.7/20: A Time to Heal
• 2.8/21: The Devil’s Punchbowl
• 2.9/22: Pins and Needles, Needles and Pins, When a Man Gets Married, His Trouble Begins
• 2.10/23: Crown of Thorns
• 2.11/24: When the Bough Breaks
• 2.12/25: Love Knots
• 2.13/26: The Book of Hours

See also the listing at Echo Bridge Home Entertainment’s website.

A news story by Randy Boswell has appeared in a number of newspapers across Canada yesterday and today.

One of the books most coveted by collectors of Canadian literary history — a first edition copy of Anne of Green Gables — is to be sold at auction next week in New York for what could be a record price.

The vintage edition of the classic novel by P.E.I.-born author Lucy Maud Montgomery, first printed in April 1908 by the Boston publishing house L.C. Page, is expected to fetch up to $25,000 U.S. at Sotheby’s Dec. 11 sale of rare books and manuscripts.

A top hammer price would just surpass the $24,000 record set in 2005 for another inaugural copy of the famous work.

Read more here.