“In my latest story, ‘Rilla of Ingleside,’ I have tried, as far as in me lies, to depict the fine and splendid way in which the girls of Canada reacted to the Great War—their bravery, patience and self-sacrifice. The book is theirs in a sense in which none of my other books have been: for my other books were written for anyone who might like to read them: but ‘Rilla’ was written for the girls of the great young land I love, whose destiny it will be their duty and privilege to shape and share.” —L.M. Montgomery, “How I Became a Writer,” Manitoba Free Press, 1921
This edition of Rilla of Ingleside—the only modern edition to consist of the full text of the original 1921 edition—includes introductions to the novel and to the First World War, maps of Europe, war poems by L.M. Montgomery and Virna Sheard, and an extensive glossary of terms, allusions, and events. It was edited by Benjamin Lefebvre and Andrea McKenzie and is available exclusively from Penguin Random House Canada.
For more on Montgomery’s depiction of the First World War in her fiction and in her journals, please visit the website of Laura M. Robinson’s excellent exhibit The Canadian Home Front: L.M. Montgomery’s Reflections on the First World War.
For more on Rilla of Ingleside as one of the only near-contemporaneous accounts of the First World War by a Canadian woman, see the following sites:
