Chronicles of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery’s fifth book, was published in June 1912 by L.C. Page and Company (Boston).
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Related page: Reviews of Books by L.M. Montgomery: 1908–1921
About Chronicles of Avonlea
Chronicles of Avonlea is the third of eleven books to feature Montgomery’s protagonist Anne Shirley Blythe, preceded by Anne of Green Gables (1908) and Anne of Avonlea (1909) and followed by Anne of the Island (1915), Anne’s House of Dreams (1917), Rainbow Valley (1919), Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920), Rilla of Ingleside (1921), Anne of Windy Poplars (1936), Anne of Ingleside (1939), and The Blythes Are Quoted (2009).
Because Montgomery had no novel ready for 1912 due to her grandmother’s death in March 1911, her marriage to Ewan Macdonald in July 1911, her honeymoon in England and Scotland, and her move to Ontario in October 1911, her publisher persuaded her to rewrite some of her published short stories to include references to Anne and to the community of Avonlea, as a volume of linked short stories. Montgomery complied and sent him a few dozen stories, out of which her publisher selected the twelve that appear here. In the first edition, the title page identifies the book as Chronicles of Avonlea “in which Anne Shirley of Green Gables and Avonlea plays some part, and which have to do with other personalities and events, including The Hurrying of Ludovic, Old Lady Lloyd, The Training of Felix, Little Joscelyn, The Winning of Lucinda, Old Man Shaw’s Girl, Aunt Olivia’s Beau, The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s, Pa Sloane’s Purchase, The Courting of Prissy Strong, The Miracle at Carmody, and finally The End of a Quarrel.”
This book partly formed the basis for the popular television series Road to Avonlea (1990–1996), as did The Story Girl, The Golden Road, and Further Chronicles of Avonlea.
Epigraph
The unsung beauty hid
life’s common things below.
—Whittier.
Dedication
To the memory of
Mrs. William A. Houston,
a dear friend, who has gone beyond
Contents
I. The Hurrying of Ludovic
II. Old Lady Lloyd
III. Each in His Own Tongue
IV. Little Joscelyn
V. The Winning of Lucinda
VI. Old Man Shaw’s Girl
VII. Aunt Olivia’s Beau
VIII. The Quarantine at Alexander Abraham’s
IX. Pa Sloane’s Purchase
X. The Courting of Prissy Strong
XI. The Miracle at Carmody
XII. The End of a Quarrel