The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Two: A Critical Heritage

by Benjamin Lefebvre

Overview

Now available in paperback, The L.M. Montgomery Reader assembles rediscovered primary material on one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors, spanning the entirety of her high-profile career and the years since her death.

The second volume, A Critical Heritage, narrates the development of L.M. Montgomery’s critical reputation in the years since her death. It traces milestones and turning points such as adaptations for stage and screen, posthumous publications, and the development of Montgomery Studies as a scholarly field. The introduction also considers Montgomery’s publishing history in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom at a time when her work remained in print not because it was considered part of a university canon of literature, but simply due to the continued interest of readers.

Each volume in The L.M. Montgomery Reader is accompanied by an extensive introduction and detailed commentary by leading Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre that traces the interplay between the author and the critic, as well as between the private and the public Montgomery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442668614
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	07/31/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	18 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Benjamin Lefebvre, editor of The L.M. Montgomery Library, is director of L.M. Montgomery Online. His publications include an edition of Montgomery’s rediscovered final book, The Blythes Are Quoted, and the three-volume critical anthology The L.M. Montgomery Reader, which won the 2016 PROSE Award for Literature from the Association of American Publishers. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction: A Critical Heritage
BENJAMIN LEFEBVRE

A Note on the Text

1. Lucy Maud Montgomery 1874–1942 (1966)
ELIZABETH WATERSTON

2. The Fair World of L.M. Montgomery (1973)
HELEN PORTER

3. Anne of Green Gables and the Regional Idyll (1983)
T.D. MACLULICH

4. Little Orphan Mary: Anne’s Hoydenish Double (1989)

ROSAMOND BAILEY

5. Subverting the Trite: L.M. Montgomery’s “Room of Her Own” (1992)
MARY RUBIO

6. Women’s Oral Narrative Traditions as Depicted in Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Fiction, 1918–1939 (1993)
DIANE TYE

7. L.M. Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside: Intention, Inclusion, Implosion (1994)
OWEN DUDLEY EDWARDS

8. Decoding L.M. Montgomery’s Journals / Encoding a Critical Practice for Women’s Private Literature (1994)
HELEN M. BUSS

9. “Fitted to Earn Her Own Living”: Figures of the New Woman in the Writing of L.M. Montgomery (1995)
CAROLE GERSON

10. “Pruned Down and Branched Out”: Embracing Contradiction in Anne of Green Gables (1995)
LAURA M. ROBINSON

11. Finding L.M. Montgomery’s Short Stories (1995)
REA WILMSHURST

12. L.M. Montgomery’s Manuscript Revisions (1995)
ELIZABETH EPPERLY

13. “My Secret Garden”: Dis/Pleasure in L.M. Montgomery and F.P. Grove (1999)
IRENE GAMMEL

14. Writing with a “Definite Purpose”: L.M. Montgomery, Nellie L. McClung and the Politics of Imperial Motherhood in Fiction for Children (2000)
CECILY DEVEREUX

15. Kinship and Nation in Amelia (1848) and Anne of Green Gables (1908) (2002)
MONIQUE DULL

16. The Maud Squad (2002)
CYNTHIA BROUSE

17. “The Golden Road of Youth”: L.M. Montgomery and British Children’s Books (2004)
JENNIFER H. LITSTER

18. Women at War: L.M. Montgomery, the Great War, and Canadian Cultural Memory (2008)
ANDREA MCKENZIE

19. Anne of Green Gables / Akage no An: The Flowers of Quiet Happiness (2008)
EMILY AOIFE SOMERS

20. Archival Adventures with L.M. Montgomery; or, “As Long as the Leaves Hold Together” (2012)
VANESSA BROWN AND BENJAMIN LEFEBVRE

Sources

Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Faye Hammill

“The L.M. Montgomery Reader, volume 2, presents a generous selection of material, judiciously chosen and clearly organized. The essays included cover an excellent range of primary texts, critical approaches, and eras.”

Heather Murray

“Benjamin Lefebvre is a key figure in the field of ‘Montgomery studies,’ with a keen eye to the ‘pop-cult’ aspects of Montgomery’s reputation and readership. His encyclopaedic knowledge of Montgomery and her works is evident in the knowledgeable and readable introduction, the annotations, and the useful headnotes that contextualize each selection.”

From the Publisher

“Benjamin Lefebvre is a key figure in the field of ‘Montgomery studies,’ with a keen eye to the ‘pop-cult’ aspects of Montgomery’s reputation and readership. His encyclopaedic knowledge of Montgomery and her works is evident in the knowledgeable and readable introduction, the annotations, and the useful headnotes that contextualize each selection.”

Editorial Reviews

‘Lefebvre’s archival research is thorough and often brilliant, making the Reader an invaluable trove not only for Montgomery scholars but also for those working with the reception history of Canadian writers.’

—Anne Furlong, University of Toronto Quarterly vol 84:03:2015

“Both scholars and devoted readers of this complex Canadian author will find it fascinating.”

—Barbara L. Talcroft, Children's Literature LLC

“Benjamin Lefebvre is a key figure in the field of ‘Montgomery studies,’ with a keen eye to the ‘pop-cult’ aspects of Montgomery’s reputation and readership. His encyclopaedic knowledge of Montgomery and her works is evident in the knowledgeable and readable introduction, the annotations, and the useful headnotes that contextualize each selection.”—Heather Murray, Department of English, University of Toronto

“The L.M. Montgomery Reader, volume 2, presents a generous selection of material, judiciously chosen and clearly organized. The essays included cover an excellent range of primary texts, critical approaches, and eras.”

—Faye Hammill, Professor of English, University of Strathclyde

From the Publisher

‘Lefebvre’s archival research is thorough and often brilliant, making the Reader an invaluable trove not only for Montgomery scholars but also for those working with the reception history of Canadian writers.’

University of Toronto Quarterly vol 84:03:2015 - Anne Furlong

Both scholars and devoted readers of this complex Canadian author will find it fascinating.”

Children's Literature LLC - Barbara L. Talcroft