L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1922–1925 is an unabridged and annotated edition of L.M. Montgomery’s journals that she kept from ages forty-seven to fifty-one, while living in Leaskdale, Ontario. Featuring a preface and annotations by Jen Rubio, the book was published by Rock’s Mills Press as a trade paperback in May 2018. It is the sixth volume of Montgomery’s unabridged journals, preceded by 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 (2013), edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston, as well as L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1911–1917 (2016), L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1918–1921 (2017), and L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1926–1929 (2017), and followed by L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930–1933 (2019), all edited by Jen Rubio. This book supplements The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume 3: 1921–1929 (1992), also edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston, who at the time were directed to abridge Montgomery’s journal text.
Montgomery’s transcription in her journals of Charles Macneill’s farm diary, mostly omitted in this volume, appears, along with her commentary, in The Diary of Charles Macneill, Farmer, 1892–1896 (2018).
From the Back Cover
L.M. Montgomery’s last four years in Leaskdale were marked by a series of unpredictable, and often unmanageable, events. Her account of these events, as they often twisted in increasingly unexpected directions, makes for spellbinding reading.
From 1919, Montgomery’s life had been troubled by her husband’s recurring bouts of mental illness. During the years recounted here, his mood disturbances became profound: “I dare not remain here alone with him if he continues like this,” she writes at one particularly low point. Other events added more complications to an already entangled life. A spurious lawsuit brought by a local farmer (claiming an enlarged prostate gland had been caused by a car collision) divided the community; Montgomery’s description of the trial, before and after, is riveting. Communities across Ontario were also deeply divided by Church Union, which came to a head in 1925. Her occasional eyebrow-raising comments about members of other denominations remind us that she shared many of the biases of her time.
The first publication of Montgomery’s journals in 1987 contained only a selection of her entries. Published now for the first time is the complete record of her life from 1922 to 1925.
All of her original photographs are here, many of which have never been published before. This edition also contains carefully researched new notes, with updated historical background.
Contents
Preface / Jen Rubio (v–xi)
1922 (1–105)
1923 (106–91)
1924 (192–310)
1925 (311–435)
Acknowledgements (436)
Index (437–42)
Photo Index (443–49)
Metadata
Paratexts: Preface and notes by Jen Rubio
Country: Canada
Publisher: Rock’s Mills Press (n.p.)
Date: 2018
Format: Trade paperback
Trim: 6 x 9”
Pagination: xvi + 449 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-7724-4113-8