The Blythes Are Quoted

The Blythes Are Quoted has a strange publication history. Montgomery completed it in 1942, the year of her death, and submitted it to her publisher. It was rejected, partly because of its dark wartime tone and partly because the publisher had quietly issued a heavily edited subset of its material in 1974 as The Road to Yesterday. The full version, with the poems and framing material restored, only appeared in 2009.

The book is a mix. It contains fifteen short stories set in and around Glen St. Mary, mostly featuring Blythe family members in supporting or off-screen roles. Between the stories Montgomery placed dialogue scenes in which various Blythes, including a wounded WWII-era Walter Blythe surviving in an alternate timeline, comment on Anne’s poetry. The tone is darker than anything else in the canon. Affairs, suicides, family violence, and the long shadow of two world wars sit beside the cozy small-town scenes readers expect. As a coda to a long series, written by an author in poor health and personal crisis, it is genuinely uncomfortable. It is also one of the most interesting things Montgomery wrote.