The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929 (1992)
Edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston
Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992
Synopsis
This eagerly anticipated third volume of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s journals covers the period 1921 to 1929. In the 1920s, Montgomery is in mature mid-life, and her personal and professional lives are becoming even more complex. Montgomery juggles the demands of motherhood, parish obligations, indifferent household help, grief at the loss of older friends and family, appeals by her PEI clan for advice and assistance—everyday struggles to balance a woman’s social and domestic duties. There are also triumphs and trials more closely related to her position as a best-selling author: growing fame; the successful midwifery of her new heroines ‘Emily’ and ‘Marigold’ and a more adult novel, The Blue Castle; the struggle to allocate time for correspondence with publishers, fans, pen-friends—and actually to write. We trace the happy conclusion of her lawsuits against an unscrupulous publisher, and the disappointing outcome of the tempest-in-a-teapot suit arising from a minor automobile accident. There are more personal worries: the Rev. Ewan Macdonald’s envy of his wife’s publishing and social success; the dark shadow cast by his recurrent attacks of religious melancholia; her concern lest their sons evince similar tendencies.
In mid-decade, Ewan Macdonald accepts a call to Norval, Ontario and Montgomery leaves ‘dear Leaskdale’ with mixed feelings.
In these years—so unlike the decade described as the ‘Jazz Age’—LMM turns more and more to her journal to record insights and opinions not voiceable by ‘the angel in the house’, as well as the brief epiphanies of delight in nature’s beauty that have always sustained her. Her journal is an important example of life-writing—writing in the autobiographical mode—by a complex, sensitive, successful, and surprisingly contemporary writer.
Contents
Illustrations (vi-vii)
Acknowledgements (viii-ix)
Introduction (x-xxv)
1921 (1-34)
1922 (35-107)
1923 (108-154)
1924 (155-214)
1925 (215-267)
1926 (268-318)
1927 (319-362)
1928 (363-388)
1929 (389-401)
Notes (402-432)
List of deletions (433-434)
List of Montgomery’s errors in dating entries (434)
Index (435-443)
Reviews
Arsenault, Lisa. Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. In Canadian Book Review Annual 1992, edited by Joyce M. Wilson, 71-72. Toronto: CBRA, 1993.
Bliss, Michael. “The Travails of the Creative Spirit.” Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. Canadian Children’s Literature / Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse 72 (Winter 1993): 85-86.
Boone, Laurel. “Success in Private.” Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. Books in Canada, December 1992, 49.
Grauer, Lalage. Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. University of Toronto Quarterly 63, no. 1 (1993): 217-20.
Gray, Kathe, and Owen Roberts. “They Love Lucy.” Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. University of Guelph Research 7, no. 1 (1992): 11.
Stich, Klaus Peter. “Published Private Lives.” Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston; Fresh Lettuce & New Faces, by Elfrieda Read. Canadian Literature 144 (Spring 1995): 195-97.
Wiggins, Genevieve. Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume III: 1921-1929, ed. Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston. The American Review of Canadian Studies 23, no. 4 (Winter 1993): 629-31.
