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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 first volume, A Life in Print, focuses specifically on Montgomery’s role as a public celebrity and author of the resoundingly successful Anne of Green Gables (1908). The selections give a strong impression of Montgomery as a writer and cultural critic as she discusses a range of topics with wit, wisdom, and humour, including the natural landscape of Prince Edward Island, her wide readership, anxieties about modernity, and the continued relevance of "old ideals." These essays and interviews, joined by a number of additional pieces that discuss her work’s literary and cultural value in relation to an emerging canon of Canadian literature, make up nearly one hundred selections in all.
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.
An exciting new collection, The L.M. Montgomery Reader assembles significant rediscovered primary materials on one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors throughout her high-profile career as the author of the resoundingly successful Anne of Green Gables (1908) and after her death.
- Imprint: University of Toronto Press
- Published: December 2013
- Pages: 464
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.
“While Lefebvre’s The L.M. Montgomery Reader is a vital resource of primary sources from and secondary assessments of one of Canada’s most popular twentieth-century authors, it is his insightful and knowledgeable analysis that shapes and gives meaning to the collection. The depth of his knowledge results in a work that is as comprehensible as it is comprehensive.”
Andre Narbonne
American Review of Canadian Studies
“With this volume, Lefebvre broadens our understanding of Montgomery’s reception and reputation both within Canada and internationally, unearthing previously obscure content and commentary and making it accessible to a far wider audience. This reader will thus prove a valuable resource to both existing and future scholars of Montgomery’s work and life, as well as those fans keen for a little more insight into the ever-elusive figure of L.M. Montgomery.”
Sarah Galletly
British Journal of Canadian Studies
“Lefebvre has uncovered a cache of new, important material in an already impressive and crowded field of Montgomery scholarship. His sensitive editing of the material brings the public side of Montgomery into better focus as she fields endless questions about how she became a writer, how Anne came to be and whether or not she was a real girl and what the author thought of young women in her day. [This book will] deepen our knowledge and understanding of this beloved Canadian icon.”
Laurie Glenn Norris
Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB)
“This comprehensive volume (with its two companions) forms a treasure trove of previously unavailable material; it will be of interest to scholars of Canadian and world literature and possibly to true admirers of Anne of Green Gables and its author.”
Barbara L. Talcroft
Children's Literature LLC
‘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
"No one knows more than Benjamin Lefebvre about publications by and about L.M. Montgomery, and it’s wonderful to have so many previously inaccessible materials now made available. This volume represents a serious advance in state-of-the-art research for Montgomery specialists, and offers a major contribution to our knowledge of Canadian literature and culture for the first half of the twentieth century. Enriched with fulsome annotations and contextualizing information, it will be appreciated by both scholars and Montgomery fans."
Carole Gerson, Department of English, Simon Fraser University
"Rich, broad, and extremely well organized, this volume changes the way we understand Montgomery as a writer in a way no previous publication has done. It is an enormously valuable resource for scholars, students, and interested readers of Montgomery’s writing."
Cecily Devereux, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta
Winner - PROSE Award for Literature awarded by Association of American Publishers