Published for the first time ever, the first draft of The Blue Castle exactly as L. M. Montgomery originally wrote it, with critical context from a leading Montgomery scholar.

Available for the first time ever, the original draft of Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Blue Castle is presented with scribbled notes, character name changes, additions and deletions, and other pre-publication changes, offering fascinating new insight into the writing process of one of Canada's most beloved writers.

First published in 1926, The Blue Castle is one of Montgomery's few adult novels—and the only one set entirely outside of the author's home province of Prince Edward Island. Montgomery scholar Carolyn Strom Collins provides a transcription of the text and notes from Montgomery's handwritten manuscript, showing how they were integrated to form the published novel. (Major changes include changing the inspiring main character's name from Miranda to Valancy, and Barney's beloved cat from Jigglesqueak to Banjo.)

Edited with a keen eye to detail and deep respect for the writer's creative process, and featuring high-quality photographs of select pages of the original manuscript, The Blue Castle: The Original Manuscript is a necessary addition to any Montgomery lover's collection.

Lucy Maud (L. M.) Montgomery, one of Canada's best-known authors, was born in Prince Edward Island in 1874. Her career spanned fifty years and included twenty-one novels, over five hundred stories, over five hundred poems, many essays and articles, as well as volumes of journals and letters. But it is her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), that is her best-loved work, not only in Canada but all over the world.

Lucy Montgomery's profile page

Carolyn Strom Collins is the author of The Anne of Green Gables Treasury and other "Anne" companion books and articles. She has also published companion books on Little Women and The Secret Garden, and edited Anne of Green Gables: The Original Manuscript and After Many Years: Twenty-one "Long Lost" Stories by L. M. Montgomery. Carolyn founded The Friends of the L. M. Montgomery Institute at UPEI as well as the L. M. Montgomery Literary Society.

Carolyn Strom Collins' profile page