The Blythes Are Quoted (57 page)

Sometime after
Anne of Ingleside
was published in 1939, Montgomery began work on the project that would become
The Blythes Are Quoted
. Its composition is a mystery; there is no mention of it anywhere in her surviving journals and correspondence, most of which had tapered off by this time. Apparently unable or unwilling to compose a full novel, Montgomery revised previously published short stories (as well as a few she had been unable to publish in their original form) to include mentions and appearances of the Blythe family and attributed forty-one of her own poems to Anne and to Walter. The short stories were fairly recent, having appeared throughout the 1930s in Canadian and American magazines such as
Family Herald and Weekly Star
,
Canadian Home Journal
,
Country Home
, and
Holland’s, the Magazine of the South
, but the poems were from a wider span of her career, appearing first in
The Canadian Magazine
,
Canadian Bookman
,
Ladies’ Home Journal
,
The Commonweal
,
Saturday Night
,
Chatelaine
, and
Good Housekeeping
.
*

In this final project, Montgomery stays within the patterns she and her readers are used to, but the outcomes no longer fit. Two stories focus on characters whose actions are driven by decades of bitterness, only to have the tables turned on them by circumstance. Three stories contain elaborate deathbed scenes, and the plots of three more hinge on the ways that the death of an adult can manipulate the lives of younger people. For every worthy romantic prospect or responsible guardian in the lives of the main characters, there are close calls with additional characters who are brutish, controlling, selfish, and abusive. Moreover, poems that celebrate the safety of family and home are balanced by ones concerning jealousy between lovers, anguished yearning for the past, and personal failures. The book’s unique structure creates a contrast between the short stories, which include numerous laudatory mentions of the Blythe family from the perspective of outsiders (and a few nasty comments as well), and the vignettes, which show that life at Ingleside is not always how it is perceived. And in dividing her book into two parts, with the Great War at its centre, Montgomery provided a further contrast, between the relatively peaceful pre-war period and the rapid changes that came in the war’s aftermath.

*
In rewriting stories set originally in the 1930s and situating them before the Great War, Montgomery inadvertently introduced a few anachronisms: in “An Afternoon with Mr. Jenkins,” Timothy mentions that his father, who had been a soldier, was the recipient of “the Distinguished Service Medal,” an honour only awarded in the Great War, and in “The Twins Pretend,” Jill and P.G. enact the execution of Edith Cavell, a British nurse who would not be put to death until 1915 in Belgium. In the final story, “The Road to Yesterday,” set during the Second World War, Susette and “Dick” reminisce about their childhood adventures with Anne and Gilbert’s grandchildren, which is impossible in terms of the book’s chronology.

Montgomery revised the continuity of the overall series by revealing for the first time that Anne has written occasional poems throughout her life. Readers who were disappointed that Anne’s writing ambitions petered out in some of the later books will welcome this revision, especially given Anne’s assertion that many of these were written at key moments in her life: “Grief,” written as an echo to Matthew’s death, which occurs in
Anne of Green Gables
; “Old Path Round the Shore” and “The Gate of Dream,” written while she was a schoolteacher, in
Anne of Avonlea
; “Man and Woman,” “Midsummer Day,” and “Remembered,” written while at university, in
Anne of the Island
; and “Farewell to an Old Room,” written on the eve of her wedding day, in
Anne’s House of Dreams
. However, although Montgomery herself had published most of these poems in periodicals, there is no indication anywhere in this book that Anne succeeded in publishing any of them. As well, readers who applaud Anne when she breaks her slate over Gilbert’s head in
Anne of Green Gables
may be disappointed to read Gilbert’s version of these events so many years later, as revealed in their discussion of “Farewell to an Old Room”: “Your mother thought she had a grudge against me, but I always wanted to be friends.” Equally disappointing, of course, is the fact that Anne offers nothing in reply.

Finally, nowhere do we see Montgomery reconsidering her earlier work more than in her changed depiction of the Great War, which in
Rilla of Ingleside
had been celebrated as a necessary sacrifice for the sake of a peaceful future. This is most immediately apparent in Anne and Jem’s final discussion at the end of the book, but there are several additional clues as well: in the typescript that was used as the basis of this edition, Montgomery included the term “Great War” on the title page, but crossed out “Great” and added “First World” in ink, an admission that the new world she had once predicted would emerge out of the ashes of the Great War would not materialize after all. Part of this admission can also be found in the devastating battle staged in the poems at opposite ends of the book. Addressing her readers with the proviso that the full text of “The Piper” “seems even more appropriate now”—that is, in the dark days of the Second World War—“than then,” Montgomery begins the book with two stanzas that feel far more conflicted than the poem alluded to in
Rilla of Ingleside
. And yet “The Aftermath,” arranged to bring the story to a close, invites us to reconsider this ambivalence, perhaps to see a layer of despair that could otherwise be missed. The text of “The Aftermath,” written from the perspective of a soldier who wishes he had not survived the war, is a surprise to readers who remember the courage and nobility that Walter exhibited in
Rilla
. Montgomery proved highly ambivalent about this poem, crossing out the poem and the final dialogue in ink but saving the deleted pages for posterity. And although “The Piper” is attributed to Walter, Montgomery submitted it to
Saturday Night
magazine, with a nearly identical introductory note, three weeks before her death. Published posthumously on May 2, 1942, it is Montgomery’s final poem—it commemorates the end of her career and the end of her life.

While this final book certainly asks a lot of Montgomery’s devoted readers, I am hopeful that these revisions and reconsiderations will add to her legacy rather than take anything away. This familiar and unfamiliar book may surprise as much as it delights, but beneath the moments of despair and regret, Montgomery’s sense of humour, her uncanny ability to paint human interactions, and her compassion for people’s failings all shine through.

This edition is based on the last of three typescripts of
The Blythes Are Quoted
that are part of the L.M. Montgomery Collection, Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library. This typescript was among a larger file of papers that was sold to the University of Guelph by David Macdonald (son of Montgomery’s eldest son, Chester) in 1984. Although none of the three typescripts is dated, copies of the final typescript are also part of the Jack McClelland fonds and the McClelland & Stewart fonds at McMaster University, confirming that the book was submitted to her Canadian publisher prior to Montgomery’s death. I have corrected obvious typographical errors and restored words that were inadvertently dropped from the final typescript (using whenever possible the wording from an earlier typescript). I have regularized Montgomery’s spelling and punctuation to make the text more readable. All ellipses are Montgomery’s, and I have followed her instructions (sometimes handwritten) concerning the placement of occasional footnotes that refer to her earlier texts. I have added nothing to what Montgomery wrote, and I did not correct more substantial errors in the text, such as the claim that Anne and Gilbert have five children when they have six (in “Twilight in Ingleside”), the names Charlie Pye and Rosamond West, the phrase “score of imagination,” and the consistent misspelling of Roy Gardner’s surname. My goal throughout has been to offer as close a reproduction of Montgomery’s text as possible. For more information about the individual short stories and poems in their original form, as well as further resources that pertain to this project and to Montgomery’s legacy, please visit the L.M. Montgomery Research Group website at
http://lmmresearch.org
.

This edition of
The Blythes Are Quoted
is indebted to several friends and colleagues who supported the project in innumerable ways: Lorne Bruce, Donna Campbell, Mary Beth Cavert, Carolyn Strom Collins, Cecily Devereux, Elizabeth R. Epperly, Irene Gammel, Carole Gerson, Joshua Ginter, Maryam Haddad, Yuka Kajihara, Bernard Katz, Jennifer H. Litster, Andrea McKenzie, Jason Nolan, Donna Palmateer Pennee, Mavis Reimer, Laura Robinson, Mary Henley Rubio, Carl Spadoni, Meg Taylor, Elizabeth Waterston, Joanne E. Wood, Kate Wood, Christy Woster, Emily Woster, and Lorraine York. I also thank Ruth Macdonald, David Macdonald, Kate Macdonald Butler, Sally Keefe Cohen, and Marian Dingman Hebb at Heirs of

L.M. Montgomery, Helen Reeves and Alex Schultz at Penguin Canada and copyeditor Stephanie Fysh. I gratefully acknowledge doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a Major Research Grant from the Office of the Vice-President (Research and Graduate Studies) at the University of Winnipeg. My special thanks go to Jacob Letkemann, Kelly Norah Drukker, Lisa Richter, James Buchanan, Melanie Lefebvre, Jeremy Lefebvre, Éric Lemay, and Julie Trépanier. I dedicate this book to my mother, Claire Pelland Lefebvre, and to the memory of my father, Gerald M. Lefebvre.

Anne of Green Gables
(1908)

Anne of Avonlea
(1909)

Anne of the Island
(1915)

Anne of Windy Poplars
(1936)

Anne’s House of Dreams
(1917)

Anne of Ingleside
(1939)

Rainbow Valley
(1919)

Rilla of Ingleside
(1921)

The Blythes Are Quoted,
edited by Benjamin Lefebvre (2009)

Chronicles of Avonlea
(1912)

Further Chronicles of Avonlea
(1920)

Emily of New Moon
(1923)

Emily Climbs
(1925)

Emily’s Quest
(1927)

Kilmeny of the Orchard
(1910)

The Story Girl
(1911)

The Golden Road
(1913)

The Blue Castle
(1926)

Magic for Marigold
(1929)

A Tangled Web
(1931)

Pat of Silver Bush
(1933)

Mistress Pat
(1935)

Jane of Lantern Hill
(1937)

The Watchman and Other Poems
(1916)

The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery,
selected by John Ferns and Kevin McCabe (1987)

The Road to Yesterday
(1974)

The Doctor’s Sweetheart and Other Stories,
selected by Catherine McLay (1979)

Akin to Anne: Tales of Other Orphans,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1988)

Along the Shore: Tales by the Sea,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1989)

Among the Shadows: Tales of the Darker Side,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1990)

After Many Days: Tales of Time Passed,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1991)

Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1993)

At the Altar: Matrimonial Tales,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1994)

Across the Miles: Tales of Correspondence,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1995)

Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories,
edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1995)

The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career
(1917/1975)

Courageous Women,
with Marian Keith and Mabel Burns McKinley (1934)

The Green Gables Letters from L.M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber, 1905–1909,
edited by Wilfrid Eggleston (1960)

My Dear Mr. M.: Letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery,
edited by Francis W.P. Bolger and Elizabeth R. Epperly (1980)

The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery
(5 vols.), edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston (1985–2004)

After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery’s Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916–1941,
edited by Hildi Froese Tiessen and Paul Gerard Tiessen (2006)

Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery,
by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly (2008)