Rainbow Valley is L.M. Montgomery’s tenth book, first published in August 1919 by McClelland and Stewart (Toronto) and the Frederick A. Stokes Company (New York). It is the sixth of eleven books to feature Montgomery’s protagonist Anne Shirley Blythe, preceded by Anne of Green Gables (1908), Anne of Avonlea (1909), Chronicles of Avonlea (1912), Anne of the Island (1915), and Anne’s House of Dreams (1917), and followed by Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920), Rilla of Ingleside (1921), Anne of Windy Poplars (1936), Anne of Ingleside (1939), and The Blythes Are Quoted (2009).
Although the novel is set in the first decade of the twentieth century, it was planned and most of it drafted in the midst of the First World War and published within a year of the war’s end. The shadow of the War looms over the adult and child characters in the book, which is dedicated to the memory of three young men in Montgomery’s community who died in battle.
epigraph
“The thoughts of youth are long, / long thoughts.” —Longfellow
Dedication
To the memory of Goldwin Lapp, Robert Brookes, and Morley Shier, who made the supreme sacrifice that the happy valleys of their home land might be kept sacred from the ravage of the invader.
Contents
1. Home Again
2. Sheer Gossip
3. The Ingleside Children
4. The Manse Children
5. The Advent of Mary Vance
6. Mary Stays at the Manse
7. A Fishy Episode
8. Miss Cornelia Intervenes
9. Una Intervenes
10. The Manse Girls Clean House
11. A Dreadful Discovery
12. An Explanation and a Dare
13. The House on the Hill
14. Mrs. Alec Davis Makes a Call
15. More Gossip
16. Tit for Tat
17. A Double Victory
18. Mary Brings Evil Tidings
19. Poor Adam!
20. Faith Makes a Friend
21. The Impossible Word
22. St. George Knows All About It
23. The Good-Conduct Club
24. A Charitable Impulse
25. Another Scandal and Another “Explanation”
26. Miss Cornelia Gets a New Point of View
27. A Sacred Concert
28. A Fast Day
29. A Weird Tale
30. The Ghost on the Dyke
31. Carl Does Penance
32. Two Stubborn People
33. Carl Is—Not—Whipped
34. Una Visits the Hill
35. “Let the Piper Come”
Links
L.M. Montgomery’s Personal Scrapbooks and Book Covers: Rainbow Valley