L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1911–1917 is an unabridged and annotated edition of L.M. Montgomery’s journals that she kept from ages thirty-six to forty-three while living in Ontario as well as on her honeymoon in England and Scotland. It was edited by Jen Rubio and published by Rock’s Mills Press as a trade paperback in June 2016, featuring a preface by Jonathan F. Vance. Not only does it follow The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900 (2012) and The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1901–1911, edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston, but it supplements The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume 2: 1910–1921 (1987), also edited by Rubio and Waterston, who at the time were directed to abridge Montgomery’s journal text. It is followed by L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1918–1921 (2017), L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1926–1929 (2017), L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922–1925 (2018), and L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930–1933 (2019).
From the Back Cover
The years following L.M. Montgomery’s departure from Prince Edward Island were among the most eventful of her life. She travelled in England and Scotland on her honeymoon; she began her new role of minister’s wife in Leaskdale, Ontario; she gave birth three times; and, in August 1914, she watched Canada go to war.
The original publication of Montgomery’s journals in 1987 contained only a selection of her entries. Published now for the first time ever is the full record from 1911 to 1917, a wonderful account of the small and the large, the tragic and the funny. She delights in the birth of her first son. A second baby, however, is stillborn on the eve of war. By the time her third is born, war has become a disquieting reality, with local boys dying overseas.
This edition includes all of Montgomery’s original photographs, many of which have never been published. The hundreds of annotations, completely new and exclusive to this edition, incorporate the most up-to-date historical thinking. A new preface by historian Jonathan F. Vance is lively and insightful.
Montgomery’s record of international conflict and politics is fascinating. She would draw on this record later for her novel about the Canadian home front during World War 1, Rilla of Ingleside (1921). Another new Rock’s Mills edition, Readying Rilla: L.M. Montgomery Reworks Her Manuscript (2016), reveals her process of editing this material.
Contents
Preface / Jonathan F. Vance (v–vii)
1911 (1–62)
1912 (63–95)
1913 (96–144)
1914 (145–75)
1915 (176–208)
1916 (209–67)
1917 (268–335)
Acknowledgements (356)
Index (358–45)
Index of Photography (346–58)
Reviews
Reviews by Barbara Carman Garner and Carole Gerson.
Metadata
Editor: Jen Rubio
Paratext: Preface by Jonathan F. Vance
Country: Canada
Publisher: Rock’s Mills Press (n.p.)
Date: 2016
Pagination: x + 358 pp.
Format: Trade paperback
Trim: 6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-77244-022-5