Courageous Women, L.M. Montgomery’s twentieth book (with Marian Keith and Mabel Burns McKinley), was published by McClelland & Stewart.
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Contents
About Courageous Women Chapters Editions of Courageous Women Reviews of Courageous Women
About Courageous Women
Courageous Women is a volume of twenty-one essays on women who had made major contributions to nursing, the arts, politics, missionary work, and the war effort. For this project, Montgomery collaborated with two of her contemporaries, both of them established authors: Marian Keith, pseudonym of Mary Esther MacGregor, whose works of fiction included Duncan Polite (1905) and In Orchard Glen (1916), and Mabel Burns McKinley, author of Canadian Heroines of Pioneer Days (1929).
Montgomery’s name appears first on the title page, which does not reflect alphabetical order or the proportion of work done by the three authors: indeed, although the authors of individual essays are not stated in the book, Montgomery’s comments in her journals indicate that she wrote only three of the twenty-one essays, and these were arranged as the first three chapters.
Montgomery’s three chapters are included in The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume 1: A Life in Print.
Chapters
1. The Maid of France: Joan of Arc (1–11)
2. The Angel of the Crimea: Florence Nightingale (12–21)
3. The Great White Ma: Mary Slessor of Calabar (22–31)
4. A Brave Deed: Laura Secord (32–40)
5. Happiness in a Log-Cabin: Catharine Parr Traill (41–48)
6. A Noble Girl Queen: Queen Victoria (49–57)
7. Courage in Danger: Madeleine de Verchères (58–66)
8. From Darkness to Light: Helen Keller (67–75)
9. A Friend of the School: Ada May Courtice (76–83)
10. The Golden Chrysanthemum: Caroline MacDonald (84–97)
11. A Loyal Pioneer of the West: Elizabeth Louise Mair (98–106)
12. Caring for Indians: Anna J. Gaudin (107–15)
13. A War Heroine: Edith Cavell (116–24)
14. Braving the White North: Sadie Stringer (125–34)
15. Canada’s Queen of Song: Madame Albani (135–47)
16. The Princess of the Paddle: (Tekahionwake) Pauline Johnson (148–60)
17. A Leader in Education: Aletta Elise Marty (161–69)
18. A Pupil at School: Dr. Margaret Mackellar (170–77)
19. A Daughter of the Empire: Margaret Polson Murray (178–85)
20. Service for Others: Lady Tilley (186–93)
21. Champion of Dumb Animals: Marshall Saunders (194–203)
Editions of Courageous Women
McClelland and Stewart (Toronto) published Courageous Women in 1934.
Reviews of Courageous Women
Reviews of Courageous Women that have been located so far appeared in periodicals from Canada.
Volume 3 of The L.M. Montgomery Reader includes the full text of two reviews of Courageous Women.
“Perhaps they should not be called by so cut and dried a name as ‘biographies,’ for the writers have been more concerned with the color, personality and drama revealed in each career than with mere matters of time and place. The stories of these great women make enthralling reading—far more fascinating than fiction.”
—The Globe (Toronto)