L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years 1911-1917

"... the production of Montgomery’s Complete Journals now continues under the expert direction of Jen Rubio." --Carole Gerson, Literary Review of Canada

The years following L.M. Montgomery’s departure from Prince Edward Island were among the most eventful of her life. She travelled in England and Scotland on her honeymoon; she began her new role of minister’s wife in Leaskdale, Ontario; she gave birth three times; and, in August 1914, she watched Canada go to war. The original publication of Montgomery’s journals in 1987 contained only a selection of her entries. Published now for the first time ever is the full record from 1911 to 1917, a wonderful account of the small and the large, the tragic and the funny. She delights in the birth of her first son. A second baby, however, is stillborn on the eve of war. By the time her third is born, war has become a disquieting reality, with local boys dying overseas. This edition includes all of Montgomery’s original photographs, many of which have never been published. The hundreds of annotations, completely new and exclusive to this edition, incorporate the most up-to-date historical thinking. A new preface by historian Jonathan F. Vance is lively and insightful.

Montgomery's record of global war and politics is fascinating; she would draw on it later in writing her novel Rilla of Ingleside, available in a newly annotated edition from Rock's Mills Press. Another new Rock's Mills Press title, Readying Rilla, reveals how Montgomery crafted and revised her work.