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Literary Criticism Canadian

The L.M. Montgomery Reader

Volume One: A Life in Print

edited by Benjamin Lefebvre

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Jun 2020
Category
Canadian, General, Books & Reading, Women Authors
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487500856
    Publish Date
    Nov 2015
    List Price
    $100.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487526030
    Publish Date
    Jun 2020
    List Price
    $45.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487526023
    Publish Date
    Jun 2020
    List Price
    $45.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487526047
    Publish Date
    Jun 2020
    List Price
    $45.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442644915
    Publish Date
    Dec 2013
    List Price
    $60.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442644922
    Publish Date
    May 2014
    List Price
    $60.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442644939
    Publish Date
    Jan 2015
    List Price
    $68.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442668577
    Publish Date
    Dec 2013
    List Price
    $58.00

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Description

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.

About the author

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.

Benjamin Lefebvre's profile page

Awards

  • Winner, PROSE Award for Literature awarded by Association of American Publishers

Editorial Reviews

“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.”

American Review of Canadian Studies

"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."

Children's Literature LLC

"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."

British Journal of Canadian Studies

"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, especially women before Laurence, Munro, and Atwood. For Montgomery completists, the Reader is irresistible. For those engaged in Montgomery studies or Canadian literature more generally, it is invaluable."

University of Toronto Quarterly vol 84:03:2015

"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."

Telegraph-Journal (Saint John, NB)

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