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The Blythes Are Quoted

(Anne of Green Gables #9)

L.M. Montgomery,

Benjamin Lefebvre (Goodreads Author) (Editor),

Elizabeth Rollins Epperly (Goodreads Author) (Foreword)

3.75 · Rating details · 1,481 ratings · 199 reviews

The Blythes Are Quoted is the last work of fiction by the internationally celebrated author of Anne of Green Gables. Intended by L.M. Montgomery to be the ninth volume in her bestselling series featuring her beloved heroine Anne – and delivered to her publisher on the very day she died – it has never before been published in its entirety. This rediscovered volume marks the ...more

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Hardcover, First Edition, 527 pages

Published October 27th 2009 by Viking Canada (first published 2009)

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Nov 22, 2009 Manybooks rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Any L.M. Montgomery fan

Shelves: short-stories, l-m-montgomery, childrens-literature, poetry, book-reviews, favourites-read

I have very much enjoyed L.M. Montgomery's The Blythes are Quoted, although the interspersing of short stories, poetry and Blythe family interludes does make and call for slow and deliberate reading (and while the poems are lovely, descriptive and often even very much thought provoking, if you really do NOT enjoy poetry, you might indeed want to consider skimming or even skipping these sections, as doing so does not really interfere all that much with the short stories and novellas presented).

A ...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Elizabeth rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Anyone who has read all of LMM's works and aching for one last book

Shelves: canadian-fiction, 2010

I did enjoy reading the timeless, fanciful tales of old love triangles, family feuds and poor orphans, but my thoughts and feelings toward The Blythes Are Quoted are complicated. After having read all of LMM's works, it was a bit like enjoying one more day with a loved one who had already passed away. I think for that reason, I give this book four stars. However, the Blythes are referenced in a most unfittingly way. The references to the Blythes are a bit like plums in the middle of a pudding (w ...more

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Nov 25, 2016 Alisha rated it it was ok

Hrm.
Here's my recommendation: If you hold L.M. Montgomery's books enshrined in your heart and the Anne books have taken you to a happy place from childhood on, then stick with the 8 Anne books, and perhaps the short story collection "The Road to Yesterday," but don't feel bad about not reading "The Blythes Are Quoted."

Here's why: "The Blythes Are Quoted" is the same book as "The Road To Yesterday," except with some depressing stuff added.

L.M. Montgomery put this collection of stories together ri Hrm.
Here's my recommendation: If you hold L.M. Montgomery's books enshrined in your heart and the Anne books have taken you to a happy place from childhood on, then stick with the 8 Anne books, and perhaps the short story collection "The Road to Yesterday," but don't feel bad about not reading "The Blythes Are Quoted."

Here's why: "The Blythes Are Quoted" is the same book as "The Road To Yesterday," except with some depressing stuff added.

L.M. Montgomery put this collection of stories together right before she died, but then it wasn't printed till the 1970s, when the darker parts had been excised.

None of the stories are ABOUT the Blythes; rather, they're about any number of their neighbors. But mention of the Blythes is dragged in at every possible moment... hence the title. Much as I adore the entire Blythe family, I have to admit that this plot device is a little tiring, especially when at times it's literally, every paragraph, "Susan Baker says," "Mrs. Dr. Blythe says," "Walter Blythe says," "Dr. Blythe says," etc. One can tell that L.M. Montgomery was thereby doing what was expected of her by giving the public more Blythes, however indirectly.

Some of the stories are very sweet, but as I said, you can get them in "The Road to Yesterday." The only story that is NOT in that volume is the first one, which is a pretty creepy, dark tale (that ends up with a reasonable explanation), but which had an ending I disliked.

The other bits that are exclusive to "The Blythes Are Quoted" are the interludes that describe Anne reading her own and Walter's poems to her family at Ingleside, and then usually two or three of the family offer a brief remark on the poem. Some of the poems are nice and home-like, but others are decidedly disturbing. The saddest thing to me is the family's realization at the end, that the Second World War was upon them and that the sacrifices and lives lost in the First World War were utterly in vain. L.M. Montgomery died in 1942, so that sense of uncertainty and failure was the last thing she knew.

It's sad.

I prefer my Blythes in their original 8 books. ...more

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Dec 18, 2014 Rachel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I added a new listing for this book because when I updated my review, it became listed as a review for L.M. Montgomery's "The Road to Yesterday". This is incorrect. I know that "The Road to Yesterday" is the abridged version of this book, but it is so extremely abridged that they are not the same book at all.

If you want to understand the differences, the above-mentioned book has all the short stories but with all mentions of the Blythes removed. Also, "The Blythes are Quoted" has a large number I added a new listing for this book because when I updated my review, it became listed as a review for L.M. Montgomery's "The Road to Yesterday". This is incorrect. I know that "The Road to Yesterday" is the abridged version of this book, but it is so extremely abridged that they are not the same book at all.

If you want to understand the differences, the above-mentioned book has all the short stories but with all mentions of the Blythes removed. Also, "The Blythes are Quoted" has a large number of amazing poems that are attributed to Anne and Walter Blythe, along with dialogue between the family members. Anne Shirley Blythe makes a habit of reading poems aloud in the evenings, sometimes her own and sometimes Walter's, and then the family discusses them. It almost reads like a play's dialogue. The voices are still clear, whether Anne's children are young or old, and there can be no mistaking Susan Baker.

This is an excellent book. The short stories are wonderfully written, but each one includes a spice of Blythe in it, because the stories take place in Glen St. Mary and the neighboring villages, such as Mowbray Narrows. Lucy Maud Montgomery had an ability to string words together that continues to amaze me, and I only wish I could do it just as well as she did.

Since I just re-read the entire series, reading "The Blythes are Quoted" directly afterwards made it even more poignant. Occasional dialogue from Rilla, Faith Meredith, Una Meredith, Jem Blythe and the rest appear to comment on the poems. Your heart still aches with them over their loss during the Great War.

However, if you have only ever read "Anne of Green Gables", you need to read the entire series before picking this up. Those who are disappointed in the later books in the series, because Anne happens to grow up are being foolish. "Rilla of Ingleside" is one of the best books that LMM ever wrote and Anne and Gilbert Blythe are still a strong presence in the story. Anne's children did not become who they became in a vacuum, they had marvelous parents who made them that way.

Now you'll remind me that these are only books. But I've read these books so many times, they feel real to me. "The Blythes are Quoted" really gives you Anne's joy over being a mother, glimpses of her own childhood, and then tastes of her later griefs. You see that she isn't perfect and Gilbert is still a strong presence who stands by her through everything, including seeing her poetry take a dark twist now and then. These are real struggles that you see in marriage.

Perhaps the harsher literary critics will say I shouldn't have given this 5 stars. But the short stories go back between touching to funny, from revengeful to cold, and touches on dark thoughts along with the joyous. The poetry does the same, tied together by the "quotes" from the family of Blythe. You shouldn't be disappointed. If you are, I would suggest (cheerfully) that it's your own fault. ...more

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Oct 15, 2020 Paul E. Morph rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2020

Submitted to her publisher immediately before her death and not published in its entirety until 2009, L.M. Montgomery’s The Blythes Are Quoted is a bit of an odd duck.

A collection of short stories only tangentially connected to Anne Blythe and family interspersed with short vignettes of the Blythes at home reading each other’s poetry aloud, it does feel a bit cobbled together.

Some don’t consider this a part of the Anne series proper and that’s understandable as it doesn’t adhere to previously es ...more

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Sep 04, 2009 Rachel Brand rated it it was amazing

Shelves: lucy-maud-montgomery, 2014, classics, own

I received this book as a Christmas present several years ago, after reading about it online, but felt a little daunted at the prospect of reading it. This isn't a short book, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find the time to sit down and read it while at university. I also didn't like the idea of the Anne books finally being over. I read Rilla of Ingleside in 2009, when this book was first published, and was happy to hear that Rilla's story wasn't the last one.

Having graduated from universi I received this book as a Christmas present several years ago, after reading about it online, but felt a little daunted at the prospect of reading it. This isn't a short book, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find the time to sit down and read it while at university. I also didn't like the idea of the Anne books finally being over. I read Rilla of Ingleside in 2009, when this book was first published, and was happy to hear that Rilla's story wasn't the last one.

Having graduated from university and cut down significantly on the number of books I review, now seemed like a good time to finally read the final, missing Anne book. I read some reviews from readers who were disappointed by the darkness of the book, and others from people who didn't appreciate the poetry, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Perhaps all the comments about this book being bleak and depressing made me think this book would be a whole lot darker than it actually was, because I didn't find it much darker than Rilla of Ingleside, which certainly had its sad moments.

I've never been a big fan of poetry, and struggled during the semesters where I had to read a lot of it at university, but I found myself surprisingly enjoying the poems scattered throughout this book. I didn't realise until I read the Afterword that most of them had been previously published by Montgomery in magazines and other publications--I assumed she'd written them for this book, with Anne and Walter specifically in mind. I could definitely see stylistic differences in Anne and Walter's writing, which made the characters come alive even more.

For the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed the short stories in this collection, although some more so than others. The first story, "Some Fools and a Saint" is probably my favourite, even if it is a little darker than Montgomery's usual writing. My least favourite is actually the final story in the collection, "The Road to Yesterday". It felt like Montgomery was trying to capture one of her earlier, more romantic, happy stories and couldn't quite get herself into the right frame of mind. I was left feeling dissatisfied, as if something wasn't quite right about the story. It definitely made for an interesting juxtaposition with the final, concluding poetry, which was far from happy.

As mentioned in the Afterword, many of the short stories in this book were previously published in magazines and newspapers, and Montgomery edited them to fit them into this book, which explains why some of the references to the Blythe family and their friends didn't feel entirely organic. Not all of them were positive, so I won't complain that the Blythes came across as perfect in this collection. But sometimes there were so many references to Gilbert, Anne, or their children, in the space of a page that it didn't feel at all realistic--especially when the narrator or character in that story didn't even know the Blythes very well.

That said, I did appreciate the opportunity to revisit the Blythe family while they discussed Anne and Walter's poems. Some reviewers have commented that they got tired of Anne's grief over Walter's death, but I appreciated seeing how the family managed without him, and were able to remember him fondly through his poetry. Anne's grief definitely evolved throughout the book, and I felt that, in the discussion of his final poem with Jem, she was able to let go of some of her grief and say goodbye to him, knowing that he was in a better place.

The editor's comments in the Afterword are definitely worth reading, and it was interesting to learn about the publication history of this book, and people's perceptions of the changes in Montgomery's writing. Lefebvre comments that while some people, who were only familiar with the first Anne book, noticed an obvious change in Montgomery's writing, others who had read her work chronologically could see how it evolved over time, and that this was the natural outcome of such an evolution. I found myself agreeing with this statement. While some people have commented on the patriotism in Rilla of Ingleside, I was more aware of a sadness and sense of loss in Montgomery's writing, which continued into this volume.

I think this collection will be best appreciated with those who have read all of the Anne books and are aware of some of the details of Montgomery's personal life. This isn't just the final volume in Anne's story, but also in Montgomery's. Although I'm sad to have closed the final chapter in Anne's life, I'm glad that I still have many of Montgomery's other books left to read, as well as her short stories, poems and other writings. Aside from some of the inorganic references to the Blythes throughout this collection, this is definitely among Montgomery's best works. 4.5* ...more

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Jun 29, 2011 Rebecca Saxon rated it liked it

Shelves: anne-of-green-gables, lm-montgomery

This claims to be the “rediscovered last work of L.M. Montgomery”, and while it does have a lot of never before published content, that may be overstating things. Most of the short stories in this book were already published in the short story collection, The Road to Yesterday. There are a couple new short stories but the majority of the new content is a framing devise: the Blythes sharing poetry together and having brief discussions. The book is divided into two parts, a before WWI section and ...more

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Jan 14, 2016 Alicia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, canada, own-it-hardcopy, classics

I liked every short story in this book. I even liked the poetry! Some of the stories/poems were darker than Montgomery’s typical books, but that’s life and they were still perfect (made all the more so with each mention of Anne and Gilbert). A must-read for any Montgomery fan!

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Aug 20, 2016 Beata rated it it was ok

What a total waste of time this book was.

A bit of background information: I'm a huge Anne of Green Gables fan. I was obsessed with the series when I was a kid. Anne of the Island was the first book I ever read on my own. It is the reason I read as much as I do today. I re-read it almost once a year. For a long time, I struggled to find any other books that appealed to me because this series was just SO GOOD. So when I saw this book on the shelves back in 2009, I bought it immediately and devoure What a total waste of time this book was.

A bit of background information: I'm a huge Anne of Green Gables fan. I was obsessed with the series when I was a kid. Anne of the Island was the first book I ever read on my own. It is the reason I read as much as I do today. I re-read it almost once a year. For a long time, I struggled to find any other books that appealed to me because this series was just SO GOOD. So when I saw this book on the shelves back in 2009, I bought it immediately and devoured the first 40 pages.

Then I stopped. Because it was unbelievably boring.

So seven years later, I re-read the Anne of Green Gables series and decided I really wanted to know what happened to my favourite characters after the series ended. Who married who? How would they deal with World War 2 after all the hearbreak of Rilla of Ingleside? It didn't matter if it was boring. I would push through it because I needed that information.

And guess what? I didn't even get it.

Because this book isn't about the Blythes, or the Merediths, or anyone we care about in the slightest. It's a collection of kind of cute stories about random people in the Glen, who all seem to worship the Blythes and constantly compare themselves and everyone around them to the Blythes. Honestly, I can't believe I'm saying this, but by the end of this book I was sick of hearing about the stupid Blythes. IF THEY'RE SO AWESOME YOU CAN'T GO TWO SENTENCES WITHOUT MENTIONING THEM, WHY AM I NOT READING ABOUT THEM?

And for awhile, I pushed through these stories, because I figured that once I got into the second part, which was set after the end of the series, it might be a bit more Blythe-oriented and I might get a bit more information. Except that still didn't happen. What did I get instead? More small town drama and Glen gossip that I frankly could not care less about. 522 pages and did I learn a single thing that could not have been inferred from the last book? (view spoiler) NO. But hey, it's a good thing I know how those random twins got to renovate that house and whats-his-name got to pick which relative he got to live with.

And then there were the poetry sessions. Oh, those poetry sessions. I looked forward to them, because, you know, they were the only scenes with Blythes in them. But the poetry just didn't stand out to me. I never felt like I was reading Anne or Walter's writing, it was always L.M. Montgomery's poems. I heard her voice. I couldn't tell the difference between Anne and Walter's poems. It was always just L.M. Montgomery's works to me. Not theirs. And then there would be awkward, forced dialogue between the characters as they commented on her poems, that frankly read like bad fanfiction. (view spoiler)

So yeah. Maybe my expectations were just too high, and maybe some Anne of Green Gables fans will enjoy this. I'll admit that some of the short stories were amusing. But you can also rest assured that you're not missing anything in terms of information about the characters in the series if you skip this book. ...more

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Jul 15, 2016 Elizabeth rated it it was amazing

Shelves: art-of-manhood, beautiful-girlhood, art-of-womanhood, classics, l-m-montgomery, short-stories-and-novellas, history, romance, poetry, rainy-day-reads

I can't even find the words....
This is LMM's 9th Anne book that was not published until 2008.
What an experience it was for me to read this over the last week or so.
Again.... I just can't find the words.

“We lost our son, Anne, as did many others, but we have our memories of him and souls cannot die. We can still walk with Walter in the spring.” Gilbert to Anne
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blythes are Quoted ...more

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Aug 22, 2013 Tracey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star, fiction

What a melancholy book. (There will be some spoilers here for the story of the Blythe family: be warned.) A collection of stories in which the Blythes are more or less tangential – "quoted", bracketed by post-Great War snippets of Blythe conversation and poetry by Anne and Walter. Actually, in a fair number of them the Blythes are loathed, which feels strange – and, to LMM's credit, is not necessarily an indicator of whether we ought to like the character doing the loathing. Some are bad 'uns – What a melancholy book. (There will be some spoilers here for the story of the Blythe family: be warned.) A collection of stories in which the Blythes are more or less tangential – "quoted", bracketed by post-Great War snippets of Blythe conversation and poetry by Anne and Walter. Actually, in a fair number of them the Blythes are loathed, which feels strange – and, to LMM's credit, is not necessarily an indicator of whether we ought to like the character doing the loathing. Some are bad 'uns – but not all.

Oh, Walter.

There are some strange patterns in the stories collected in The Blythes Are Quoted. Those who don't like Anne ("Uncle Stephen did not like the Blythes ... he said he did not like educated women" … "Nobody in the Brewster clan, it seemed, approved of the Blythes" … "Miss Shelley could not conceive of Mrs. Blythe cherishing bitterness for thirty years. She liked her but she thought her too shallow for that.") and who feel slighted by them ("I hinted it to Dr. Blythe ... and such a snub as he gave me! And Dr. Blythe can give snubs when he wants to, I can assure you.") As I said, it's unsettling to run into this attitude.

Then there is an alarming theme of animal abuse, looked at completely differently than we do now ("Even if you'd taken the money and burned the binder house I'd have wanted you" – this to someone who killed a dog and a cat and chickens and a goat; "'what [they] did to the kitten' ... That memory was intolerable") – and, on a similar track, fox farms. In three separate stories foxes are mentioned as a commodity. Odd.

There was also a sort of a theme of unresolved questions. "Epworth Rectory. I don't think that mystery has ever been solved." "Susan, to herself:-'I could tell them the story of that fiddle if I liked. But I won't. It's too sad.'" (Thank you, Susan – there was enough sadness in this book as it was.)

There are still all the things I've always loved about L.M. Montgomery's writing: humor ("Chrissie felt much better. 'In about twenty years or so I'll be pretty well over it,' she said") and pathos (not always a bad thing) and solid story-telling. But this is the dark side, keeping uppermost in my mind throughout the book that Lucy Maud took her own life. Grief and haunting and regret and pain … there are still happy endings. But the interspersed Blythe reminiscences and conversation are a reminder that "happily ever after" never takes into account wars and the deaths of children. It was surprisingly hard to read … I don't think The Blythes Are Quoted is going to be part of my semi-annual LMM-reread. ...more

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May 07, 2017 Els rated it really liked it

Oh, how I've missed PEI- the dear old red soil, the bluffs and the beaches, the sunlit woods and the cheerful meadows. I believe I purchased this book on PEI, after a long day of running along the cliffs and filling my heart with poetry. The sheer volume of sentimentality reading this book has flooded my soul with...

The Blythes are Quoted takes place half after Rainbow Valley, and half after Rilla of Ingleside. It is mostly a collection of short stories in which- you guessed it- the Blythes are ...more

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Jun 27, 2016 Rachel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is an interesting mix of stories and poems -- the stories involve people who know Anne and Gilbert Blythe's family, but they aren't actually in the stories. The poems are by Anne and her son Walter, and we get to hear the family's thoughts and reactions for them, which was by far what I liked best about the book.

Most of the stories have happy endings of one sort or another, but many of them also delve into the ideas of disillusionment, despair, regret, spite, and the constant misunderstand ...more

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Feb 10, 2020 Ren (A Bookish Balance) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-hardcopy

3.5/5 stars

The Blythes Are Quoted is the ninth Anne novel and is told in two parts, the first taking place before World War I (and prior to Rilla of Ingleside) and the second taking place after World War I (and after Rilla of Ingleside). The novel is a collection of short stories and vignettes in which Anne is reading poetry to her family, either written by herself or by Walter (Walter’s poems are in the second half only).

The tone of the novel is bleaker, more dramatic, and more scandalous than ...more

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Jul 30, 2016 LauraT rated it really liked it

" [...] themes and topics that kept recurring: adultery, illegitimacy, despair, misogyny, murder, revenge, bitterness, hatred, aging, and death."
In the afterword by Benjamin Lefebvre.
All true; great book.

Some quotations:
"There would be nothing else to do, he sadly reflected. Get up in the morning ... work all day ... eat three meals ... and go to bed at half past nine. What a life!
Clara didn’t seem to mind it. None of his neighbours in the Upper Glen seemed to mind it. Apparently they never got ...more

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Dec 24, 2009 Natalie Joan rated it liked it

A must read for Montgomery fans. I really enjoyed this. I was not a fan of the format - stories, poems and commentary - but to have this new perspective on Anne & her family, and Montgomery's views of the world, is priceless.
Note that this version is unedited and unabridged, so as to better reflect Montogmery's final writings. But in my humble opinion it is in need of an editor. There are many inconsistencies in dates and details - including more than one reference to Rilla and Ken growing up to ...more

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Dec 15, 2009 Dianna rated it really liked it

This book is L.M. Montgomery's last installment in the Anne of Green Gables series. I can see why it was never published before. Its format is unusual: short stories (in which the Blythes don't play a big part but are frequently quoted) interspersed with poems by Anne and Walter Blythe (each poem is followed by its discussion by the Blythes). The book covers the time from before World War I until World War II. I have to admit I skipped most of the poetry, but I enjoyed the short stories—I think ...more

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Jul 31, 2018 Megan Henshaw rated it it was amazing

I wish I could give this book more than five stars. Truly beautiful. Completely indescribable. The last poem and story sent chills all through me.

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Oct 03, 2020 Ruby rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is the last of the Anne of Green Gables series. It is very different from the others. It is not a traditional novel, but rather a series of poems and vignettes. The title comes from the fact that in each vignette, the Blythes (Anne, Gilbert, and their children) do not play a large role. Rather, they are "quoted" in the sense that there will be actual quotes from a member of the Blythe family or the family will be used for comparison to another family, or a family member to a member of anoth ...more

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Aug 21, 2019 Niki (nikilovestoread) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, world-war-i, favorites, classics, world-war-ii

The Blythes Are Quoted is last novel written by L. M. Montgomery. Most people believe the Anne of Green Gables series ends with Rilla of Ingleside, but that was not the author's intention. The book was delivered to Maud's publisher on the day she died and publication was suppressed for an unknown reason. Maybe as a result of the helplessness the family feels at the end. With the commencement of World War II, was the death and misery of all those men during World War I futile? They felt they were The Blythes Are Quoted is last novel written by L. M. Montgomery. Most people believe the Anne of Green Gables series ends with Rilla of Ingleside, but that was not the author's intention. The book was delivered to Maud's publisher on the day she died and publication was suppressed for an unknown reason. Maybe as a result of the helplessness the family feels at the end. With the commencement of World War II, was the death and misery of all those men during World War I futile? They felt they were fighting the good fight, steering the world where it rightfully should go, but that wasn't really what happened and maybe that was not a message publishers wanted to convey when the world was yet again amidst a great war. All speculation aside, I think The Blythes are Quoted deserves to be sitting next to the first eight books in the Anne series. Those little snippets of their lives before and after the war let the reader glimpse how the war affected the lives of so many. The afterword by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly talks about Maud's intentions with this book or I should say our lack of knowledge of her intentions. Maud kept journals throughout her life, but, sadly, didn't write much in them about her last book. It would be so interesting to know more about why she chose to structure this book filled with short stories with the tiny glimpses into the Blythe family's lives.

Besides the snippets of the Blythe family, the book is filled with short stories about people who have lived around the Blythes in Ingleside. The family is often referenced in the stories, but the stories themselves are about other people. I always enjoy L. M. Montgomery's short stories and these are no different. Well, different may not be an accurate word. They are different in many ways, darker than much of her writing, but they are wonderful and so much fun to read. I have heard that many of the stories were abridged and appeared in The Road to Yesterday with all references to the Blythes removed, but I highly recommend reading them as Maud intended. They are well worth the extra time to read the unabridged versions.

(I'm labeling The Blythes Are Quoted as a classic even though it was not published in its entirety until 2009 because I think it deserves its place next the rest of the Anne books.) ...more

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Dec 01, 2011 Kate rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya, litfic

The introduction calls this, the last book by L.M. Montgomery, "splintered," and that seems to me the best description - there are all sorts of sharp bits and things that aren't quite right along with Montgomery's usual short-story-romance-tropes. The best of this edition (which is the first that uses all the bits of the book, in the order Montgomery laid them out, rather than just the stories which were published in the 70s as The Road to Yesterday) is the sense of continuation-of-Anneness. The The introduction calls this, the last book by L.M. Montgomery, "splintered," and that seems to me the best description - there are all sorts of sharp bits and things that aren't quite right along with Montgomery's usual short-story-romance-tropes. The best of this edition (which is the first that uses all the bits of the book, in the order Montgomery laid them out, rather than just the stories which were published in the 70s as The Road to Yesterday) is the sense of continuation-of-Anneness. There are little vignettes with the Blythes, poems by "Anne" and "Walter" and short stories with the Anne characters and grandchildren shoehorned in. Despite the arrangement of the book into before-WWI and after-WWI there are several nonsensical dates, especially noticable in the final story "The Road to Yesterday" where characters in their late twenties in the second World War yet talk about being childhood friends with Anne's grandchildren, who could at most have been in their late teens/very early twenties in 1942.

The short stories themselves are not particularly special, especially since the Rea Wilmshurst compilations began coming out (Akin to Anne, Along the Shore) that highlight the repeated plots and tropes tht Montgomery used. What I liked best were the vignettes with Anne, Gilbert, Susan, and some of the children that offer a little dialogue after rather bad poetry that Anne is ostensibly reading to the family. It is clear that Montgomery was very upset by the beginning of the Second World War and the sheer waste of life that was WWI - and she shares this through Anne, whose ongoing grief twenty years after Walter's death is possibly symbolic of that larger grief. It is also apparent that she was working on changing her own writing style to better match the trendy styles of the late 30s/early 40s, and that she wasn't entirely successful. The dialogue isn't her best (which is disappointing when you recall her best) and the characters don't seem entirely able to fit into the post-Depression world, or maybe they do but Montgomery can't describe them. Anne of Ingleside (1939) has always seemed intentionally dark to me, but these stories and vignettes seem dark despite intentions. Montgomery has lost (as so many people did after WWI, the Great Depression, and the beginning of WWII) her conviction that the world could be a better place on an individual level.

Worth reading for the Anne fan and for someone who wants to think about changes in writing styles from the 1900s through the 1940s, and maybe even for someone looking for the effects of depression on creative work (this book was delivered to her publisher on the day of Montgomery's death, which may have been a suicide). ...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Erika RS rated it really liked it

Shelves: owned, physical

Publishers received the typescript of this book April 24, 1942, the day Montgomery died from a drug overdose (possibly suicide). This ninth "Anne" book represents a new experiment for Montgomery's storytelling. The book contains 15 short stories that reference the Blythe family. Poems attributed to Anne and Walter and commentary from the family loosely weave together the stories.

Publishers sat on the book for 30 years. In 1974 an abridged version was published as The Road to Yesterday. This vers ...more

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Aug 24, 2011 Elinor Loredan rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011, l-m-montgomery

This book should really be called 'Cynical Anne and the Merry Blythes.'

Don't get me wrong-I love the book as a whole, but I really don't like Anne in it. All she does is sigh and say things any world-weary woman might say. I know losing a son would be terrible and haunting, but Anne has lost the things that once made her so lovable and inspiring-her cheerful, dreamy optimism and fanciful speeches. From Anne of the Island on she gets increasingly 'normal.'

But on the whole this book was highly enj ...more

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Sep 15, 2014 Nadine rated it liked it

It's probably the Montgomery book I liked the least. I have a hard time appreciating poetry, to begin win, and the discussion afterwards were too short to really enjoy our old friends.
So there's that. And it's fun to revisit characters that you love. But in that book, the presence of the Blythe feels forced. It looks like the author pick some random stories and add a couple of "said Mrs Dr. Blythe" and "Dr Blythe says"... And it's probably what happened, from the editor's note at the end.
I still ...more

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Oct 30, 2015 Maureen rated it liked it

This is an odd beast of a book. It is the final book in the Anne series and was previously published in the much abridged form of The Road to Yesterday. The poems and corresponding Blythe asides were cut and many of the short stories also abridged in that collection. Montgomery scholar, Benjamin Lefebvre, edited the unpublished manuscript in 2009 and re-published the collection as The Blythe's Are Quoted.

Whilst I enjoyed one last lap for Anne, the truth is this is a grab bag of short stories wi ...more

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Oct 23, 2018 Maja rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-classics, owned, age-ya

You may tire of reality but you never tire of dreams.

For those of you who read fanfiction, do you know that feeling when the author of your favourite fic keeps adding little one-shots, timestamps or AUs to the universe, and they just don't feel the same as the original but you love them anyway because they have the characters you fell in love with? That's how this book feels. Mainly because it is a collection of short stories set on the same island as the "Anne of Green Gables" series, in which ...more

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Jan 10, 2018 Ginny rated it really liked it

The manuscript for this book was turned in to Montgomery’s publisher the day before her death. It was shelved at the time and printed in recent years. When I got my hands on it, I wanted to savor the pages. I spread the reading of it out over a couple of years.

Readers of Montgomery’s short stories will recognize the storyline in several here that were published in an edited form in other compilations of her short stories. Is this her best work? No. But, I enjoyed it for what it is. It gives brie ...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Jen rated it really liked it

What an extraordinary book! I have owned "The Road to Yesterday" for years and always found it discombobulating to read, and NOW I KNOW WHY!!!! This lost volume--the final installment of the Anne of Green Gables series which was delivered to Montgomery's publishers the day before her death in 1942--offers a format and insights about her characters that are truly unique. Written in two parts, this work combines short stories in which the Blythe family are mentioned frequently with poetry written ...more

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Jul 13, 2014 F. O. rated it it was ok

Shelves: adult

Welp, that was pretty depressing. You could play a drinking game to this book: take a shot of currant wine every time the Blythes are awkwardly described by random characters as THE BEST PEOPLE EVER. That would be much more fun than reading the poetry bits sober. And is it just me, or does Gilbert kinda sound like a misogynist in the dialogues?

Another weird detail -- the author seems to have forgotten the names of her characters. She refers to a past suitor of Anne's as "Charlie Pye," as well a ...more

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May 18, 2020 Chloe rated it did not like it · review of another edition

As those who know me are aware, 𝘈𝘯𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘎𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘴 is my very favorite novel, and L.M. Montgomery is one of the authors whom I hold dearest to my heart. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘉𝘭𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘘𝘶𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘥, however, was a severe disappointment, and in truth, I regret reading it. Some of the poetry included in the work was quite nice, and the plots of a few of the stories were moderately interesting. This does not excuse the fact that the book in its entirety was a depressing, negativity-filled chore to read. The Blythe fam ...more

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About L.M. Montgomery

L.M. Montgomery

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Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.

The author of the famous Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables, Lucy Maud Montgomery, was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, in 1911 after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911 ...more

Other books in the series

Anne of Green Gables (9 books)

Books by L.M. Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1)

Anne of Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables, #2)

Anne of the Island (Anne of Green Gables, #3)

The Complete Anne of Green Gables Boxed Set (Anne of Green Gables, #1-8)

Anne's House of Dreams (Anne of Green Gables, #5)

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A comforting balm. A much-needed diversion. Time spent with an old friend. Childhood memories and annual traditions. We asked the...

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“we lost our son, Anne, as did many others, but we have our memories of him and souls cannot die. We can still walk with Walter in the spring.” — 5 likes

“Jill, like Nan, was at the stage when she adored villains. There was no surer passport to her favour than to look as if you were the wreck of a misspent life.
'Or a remorseful pirate,' Nan had said.
'It would be better still for him to be an unremorseful one,' said Diana.
Jill felt that she would die for an unremorseful pirate.” — 0 likes

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