Further Chronicles of Avonlea, L.M. Montgomery’s eleventh book, was published in April 1920 by The Page Company (Boston).
« Rainbow Valley (1919) | Rilla of Ingleside (1921) »
Related page: Reviews of Books by L.M. Montgomery: 1908–1921
About Further Chronicles of Avonlea
Further Chronicles of Avonlea is the seventh of eleven books to feature Montgomery’s protagonist Anne Shirley Blythe, preceded by Anne of Green Gables (1908), Anne of Avonlea (1909), Chronicles of Avonlea (1912), Anne of the Island (1915), Anne’s House of Dreams (1917), and Rainbow Valley (1919), and followed by Rilla of Ingleside (1921), Anne of Windy Poplars (1936), Anne of Ingleside (1939), and The Blythes Are Quoted (2009).
Although the book consists of fifteen stories that were not chosen for inclusion in Chronicles of Avonlea (1912), Montgomery agreed to this publication reluctantly at the end of a lawsuit in which she sold to her publisher all remaining rights to her first seven books for approximately US$18,000, under the condition that there be no mention of Anne Shirley in the book nor any depiction of her on its cover. After she had revised the stories to remove mentions of Anne and descriptive sections that she had used in her post-1912 books, Page revealed his intention to publish the 1912 versions that he had in his possession, even though this violated the terms of their agreement. Montgomery’s legal battle with the Page Company was not settled until 1928, but in the end she was victorious and the bootleg book was taken off the market. It was republished in the mid-1950s, however, and remains in print today.
This book partly formed the basis for the popular television series Road to Avonlea (1990–1996), as did The Story Girl, Chronicles of Avonlea, and The Golden Road.
Contents
I. Aunt Cynthia’s Persian Cat
II. The Materializing of Cecil
III. Her Father’s Daughter
IV. Jane’s Baby
V. The Dream-Child
VI. The Brother Who Failed
VII. The Return of Hester
VIII. The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily
IX. Sara’s Way
X. The Son of His Mother
XI. The Education of Betty
XII. In Her Selfless Mood
XIII. The Conscience Case of David Bell
XIV. Only a Common Fellow
XV. Tannis of the Flats