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Want to know more about the Read Along? Click through for the introductory post and reading schedule.
THE SELECTED JOURNALS OF LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY, VOLUME I (1889-1910)
It is will great excitement I welcome you to the LMM Journals Read Along! Picking up this first book has, in many ways, felt like coming home. If you are an Anne fan, you will be delighted to see phrases and circumstances that feel very Anne-ish. If you're an Emily fan, you'll see parallels between Maud's upbringing and Emily's.
Here you'll find school girl spats, small-town social events, a year with her beloved father (and ill-humored stepmother), a proposal from her former teacher (!), many, many heart-broken suitors, teaching, writing, an engagement, loneliness, the sale of ANNE.
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born November 30, 1874 in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island, Canada. "Thirty-four years later, in 1908, her first novel, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, put Prince Edward Island on the literary map of the world. When she died in 1942 Montgomery had published over twenty books, hundreds of short stories and poems, and her name was known far beyond the English-speaking world."
Before her second birthday, Maud, as she liked to be called, lost her mother. Her father quickly left for the mainland, remarrying and leaving Maud to be raised by her mother's parents. She began journaling as "a tot of nine" but destroyed those early copies. "Surviving are ten handwritten volumes that were begun when she was fourteen and date from 1889 to 1942." This first volume includes the first two of those ten journals, covering her PEI years "from ages 14 to 36" (including a year with her father in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan).
Without siblings, raised by older relatives, and intellectually ahead of her class, Maud often felt isolated and different from those around her. She "viewed her journals as a 'personal confidant in whom I can repose absolute trust'."
"Because the journals are so full and frank and cover such a long period, and because they are the work of a successful professional writer, they provide a degree of information, anecdote, and personal history that makes them unique in Canadian letters. The interest attached to the autobiographical content is obvious. What may not appear so obvious in this first volume is that the complete journals of L. M. Montgomery provide a fund of engrossing social history covering more than half a century and draw the reader surprisingly far into the depths of one woman's life."*
As I read, I'll share favorite quotes on Twitter, using the hashtag #lmmjournals. Make notes as you read or just enjoy. And please consider returning Monday, 25 February to join the discussion of Volume I.
Be sure to keep a second bookmark at the notes section at the back of the book. Extra details are given here.
Happy reading!
*All quotes taken from the introduction of the first volume
6 Comments on LMM Journals Read Along: Volume I, last added: 2/3/2013
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I'm looking forward to this, Caroline. My book is waiting for me at the New York Public Library. It had to be taken out of reserve and delivered to the fancy building on 42nd st. It made me feel, already, as if, ooh, what a special book this is!
I'm so excited to begin! :)
Melissa, so happy you found a copy! I'm hoping with the every-other month schedule, there will be time to search for copies, and readers and take things at a leisurely pace.
Enjoy!
Enjoy, Faith! This time through, I'm struck again by how funny she was.
Interesting! She felt like an orphan then. Guess that was the inspiration for Anne of Green Gables?
Actually, the Anne inspiration came from a newspaper clipping about a family who'd expected to adopt a boy and ended up with a girl instead. Though there are very many Anne-ish observations of nature, school girl stunts, etc. She claimed to be most like Emily, a series I absolutely MUST re-read. Maybe along with the journals?