Welcome kindred spirits!
L. M. Montgomery has been one of my favorite authors for many years. I was fortunate to discover her books in the eighties and nineties when Bantam was republishing her works and Rea Whilmhurst was collecting publishing many of Montgomery’s short stories.
These tales have stuck with me. Simple on the surface, Montgomery had a gift of bringing characters to life. Her happy endings may seem trite until you realize that those happy endings are proceeded by deep sorrows and painful tragedies. Montgomery does not need to describe empty decades to convey their emptiness or bitter arguments to show how they poison happiness. For Montgomery, what was important was the way the human spirit could turn back to meaning and joy, although often with great difficulty.
I regularly find myself delving again into the world created my L. M. Montgomery, whether it is taking a few minutes to read a short story (or ten) or losing a day to get reacquainted with Anne, Emily, Valancy, Rilla, or any of the other characters who helped shape my worldview. This project is a chance for me to revisit Montgomery’s words in a more structured manner. I am going to read and blog through all of her works that I have available to me in publication order.
You are welcome to join me. When available, I will link to the project Gutenberg version of the texts; most of these also are available as free Kindle downloads. Obviously, these links will be more plentiful early on, since Montgomery’s later works are still under copyright.
One final note. I live a busy life, and this project will involve a fair bit of reading. Thus, the posting schedule is going to be irregular. I appreciate your patience.