Let's Bust a Recap : The Emily of New Moon Trilogy

Hello again! How's your 2023 going now that we've got almost two months under our belt? Here in Western North Carolina, it's been cold and grey and dreary and this Florida girl has been feeling a bit blue lately. After finishing up Polk and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea at the beginning of January, I decided to snuggle in with one of my favorite authors and picked up the first Emily of New Moon book. I flew through this charming trilogy the last week of January though I have to admit: Emily of New Moon is my least favorite of Lucy Maud's leading ladies to date. My friend Ereina once told me that if Montgomery's Anne books are the sun, then her Emily books are the moon. After having read them, I'd say that's an apt description and as for me and my house, we'll take the sunshine of Anne Shirley over the moonlight of Emily Byrd Starr. 

Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs, and Emily's Quest were published in 1923, 1925, and 1927 respectively. At the beginning of Emily of New Moon, we meet eleven year old Emily Byrd Starr who is unceremoniously informed by her hateful (but well-meaning) housekeeper Ellen that her father is going to die any day. Unfortunately, Ellen is telling the truth, and after two glorious last weeks together, Emily is left an orphan. Her mother's people are the proud Murray clan whom Emily has never met because they disowned her mother for eloping with her father. Their pride won't allow them to leave Emily to the care of others, so shortly after her father's death, they descend upon her to decide who will be responsible for her upbringing, and the duty falls to stern Aunt Elizabeth, sweet Aunt Laura, and simple Cousin Jimmy of New Moon. Emily discovers a world of beauty at New Moon and befriends her wild next door neighbor Ilse Burnley, the artistic Teddy Kent, and Perry Miller the hired boy from Stovepipe Town. Throughout the trilogy, we see these children grow into men and women, determined to turn their dreams into reality. Emily in particular is an aspiring authoress, and we get to see her earn the respect of her family as her writing develops and is eventually published. 

Montgomery, as always, brings her signature wit and poetic prose to Emily's story, and I enjoyed it very much, particularly the middle installment, Emily Climbs. Her ability to create a colorful cast of unique characters leaves nothing to be desired. However, there were times when Emily's letters to her father and diary entries—devices Montgomery employed a lot to fill out this narrative—seemed to drag a bit for me, and by the third book, Emily's Quest, I was ready to shake the Murray pride right out of our moody protagonist. But even so, I had a lovely time in New Moon. 

Nevertheless, I won't be the frequent visitor there that I am at Green Gables.

Any recommendations for my next book by Lucy Maud?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Blue Castle

Up to this point in my life, I would tell you that I am a huge fan of Anne Shirley. In every scenario where I'm mysteriously left on a deserted island until the end of time, the Anne books are the ones I'm taking with me. I have two entire sets of the eight book series: my beloved paperbacks that my mom gave me when I was in the fourth grade, and the gorgeous hardcovers my husband found for me at an obscure online Canadian bookstore. I've lost track of how many times I've read this series from beginning to end, most recently finishing them up once again in January of last year. These books are always in my rotation, and much as I might try, I cannot choose a favorite from among them.

But this post isn't about Anne of Green Gables. My point is: up to this point in my life, I would tell you I'm an Anne Shirley fan—not a Lucy Maud Montgomery fan. Much as with my darling Christy Miller and Robin Jones Gunn, I had some secret aversion to venturing outside of the Green Gables canon into Montgomery's other work of which there is much to be explored. But just as I discovered a deeply held love for Gunn's work outside the world of Christy and friends, I have recently dipped my toes into Montgomery's Blue Castle and have found myself just as charmed and delighted with her writing as I might have expected given she authored my favorite books in the world. 

And now there's no turning back. 

For some reason that I can only chalk up to retail therapy (of the bookish variety) in the midst of the monster life changes we were going through, I found myself adding a host of L.M. Montgomery paperbacks to my AbeBooks shopping cart last summer. Instead of just buying a couple titles to ease myself slowly into this venture, I checked out with thirteen. Because go big or go home, right? And a few months later around my birthday, I decided to treat myself to one to fill the "book from your favorite genre" box on my unread shelf book bingo card. 

And that one was The Blue Castle, originally published in 1926. This novel is one of the very few adult works of fiction that Montgomery penned in her career and the only one set entirely outside the setting of Prince Edward Island. In it, we meet twenty-nine year old Valancy Stirling who is now very much considered an old maid by her nag of a mother and the rest of her dreadful extended family. After being diagnosed with a terminal heart condition (which she keeps secret), Valancy decides to start making up her own mind about things beginning with a little brutal honesty with her family—leading them to believe she has lost her ever-loving mind—and eventually resulting in a marriage proposal to the town renegade Barney Snaith—leading them to absolute shock and horror.

And I loved every word. L.M. Montgomery's wit is razor sharp and her prose as lovely as ever. I was drawn into the story, and while the plot certainly wasn't earth-shattering, I still enjoyed the journey all the way to the pleasant conclusion. 

While nothing will ever supplant my precious Anne books (or my Christy books for that matter), I am very much looking forward to continuing my jaunt through the rest of Montgomery's work, and am so pleased to find I have a whole new set of books I can count on when I need a guaranteed reading success. I'd definitely recommend The Blue Castle, and in fact, I promptly pressed it into my mother's hands nearly as soon as I finished reading it myself. 

What author never lets you down when you need a guaranteed good read? And where should I head next with L.M. Montgomery? I'm thinking Emily of New Moon.

A Word for Wednesday

"'Snow in April is abominable,' said Anne. 

'Like a slap in the face when you expected a kiss.'"

~from Anne of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"Gilbert darling, don't let's ever be afraid of things. 

It's such dreadful slavery. 

Let's be daring and adventurous and expectant. 

Let's dance to meet life and all it can bring to us, 

even if it brings scads of trouble and typhoid and twins!"

~from Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"Ma says I'm getting too old to dream. Do you think I am, Miss Shirley?"

"Nobody is ever too old to dream. And dreams never grow old."

~Pauline Gibson & Anne Shirley in Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"I don't like reading about martyrs because they always make me feel petty and ashamed...

ashamed to admit I hate to get out of bed on frosty mornings and shrink from a visit to the dentist!"

~from Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"There's magic in the words 'silk' and 'lace,' isn't there?" said Aunt Jamesina. "The very sound of them makes me feel like skipping off to a dance. And yellow silk. It makes one think of a dress of sunshine. I always wanted a yellow silk dress, but first my mother and then my husband wouldn't hear of it. The very first thing I'm going to do when I get to heaven is to get a yellow silk dress."

~Aunt Jamesina in Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"Anne walked home very slowly in the moonlight. The evening had changed something for her. 

Life held a different meaning, a deeper purpose. 

On the surface it would go on just the same; but the deeps had beens stirred. 

It must not be with her as with poor butterfly Ruby. 

When she came to the end of one life 

it must not be to face the next with the shrinking terror of something wholly different—something for which accustomed thought and ideal and aspiration had unfitted her. 

The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; 

the highest must be sought and followed; 

the life of heaven must be begun here on earth."

~from Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"Everything is changing—or going to change," said Diana sadly. "I have a feeling that things will never be the same again, Anne."

"We have come to a parting of the ways, I suppose," said Anne thoughtfully. "We had to come to it. Do you think, Diana, that being grown-up is really as nice as we used to imagine it would be when we were children?"

"I don't know—there are some nice things about it," answered Diana, again caressing her ring with that little smile which always had the effect of making Anne feel suddenly left out and inexperienced. "But there are so many puzzling things, too. Sometimes I feel as if being grown-up just frightened me—and then I would give anything to be a little girl again."

"I suppose we'll get used to being grown-up in time," said Anne cheerfully. "There won't be so many unexpected things about it by and by—though, after all, I fancy it's the unexpected things that give spice to life."

~Anne Shirley & Diana Barry in Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"But, Anne, a broken heart in real life isn't half as dreadful as it is in books. It's a good deal like a bad tooth...though you won't think that a very romantic simile. It takes spells of aching and gives you a sleepless night now and then, but between times it lets you enjoy life and dreams and echoes and peanut candy as if there were nothing the matter with it."

~Miss Lavendar Lewis in Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"I think her parents gave her the only right and fitting name that could possibly be given her," said Anne. "If they had been so blind as to name her Elizabeth or Nellie or Muriel she must have been called Lavendar just the same, I think. It's so suggestive of sweetness and old-fashioned graces and 'silk attire.' Now, my name just smacks of bread and butter, patchwork and chores."

"Oh I don't think so," said Diana. "Anne seems to me real stately and like a queen. But I'd like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be your name. I think people make their names nice or ugly just by what they are themselves. I can't bear Josie or Gertie for names now but before I knew the Pye girls I thought them real pretty."

"That's a lovely idea, Diana," said Anne enthusiastically. "Living so that you beautify your name, even if it wasn't beautiful to begin with...making it stand in people's thoughts for something so lovely and pleasant that they never think of it by itself."

~Anne Shirley & Diana Barry on names in Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"After all," Anne had said to Marilla once, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."

~Anne Shirley in Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"You're never safe from being surprised till you're dead."

~Mrs. Rachel Lynde in Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"A fellow has to fight something all through life...didn't somebody once define man as a fighting animal?...and I want to fight disease and pain and ignorance...which are all members one of another. I want to do my share of honest, real work in the world, Anne...add a little to the sum of human knowledge that all the good men have been accumulating since it began. The folks who lived before me have done so much for me that I want to show my gratitude by doing something for the folks who will live after me. It seems to me that is the only way a fellow can get square with his obligations to the race."

"I'd like to add some beauty to life," said Anne dreamily. "I don't exactly want to make people know more...though I know that is the noblest ambition...but I'd love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me...to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn't been born."

~Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley on their ambitions in Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, 

like a gay knight riding down; 

perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; 

perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, 

until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music;

 perhaps...perhaps...love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, 

as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath."

~from Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery~

Happy Valentines Day!

A Word for Wednesday

"It's always wrong to do anything you can't tell the minister's wife. 

It's as good as an extra conscience to have a minister's wife for your friend."

~Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"It is ever so much easier to be good if your clothes are fashionable."

~Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. 

It's splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world."

~Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"The world doesn't seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night. I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning. But I like rainy mornings real well, too. All sorts of mornings are interesting, don't you think? You don't know what's going to happen through the day, and there's so much scope for imagination. But I'm glad it's not rainy today because it's easier to be cheerful and bear up under affliction on a sunshiny day. I feel that I have a good deal to bear up under. It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?"

~Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery~

A Word for Wednesday

"It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you must make it up firmly."

~Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery~