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Rating: 
Summary: Extremely memorable and delightful experience to read this
Review: I am 40 years old and have kept a journal for 29 years, therefore, the journal format fascinates me. I adore Lucy Maud Montgomery's works and in 1992, I made a trip to Prince Edward Island to visit all her old haunts with my daugter and my girlfriend and her daughter. I purchased the first two journals while there. If you, dear reader, would like to know what went on in Lucy's (called Maud by everyone) mind and heart from the tender, turbulent age of 14 until her mid-thirties, I highly recommend this book. It will transport you to a simpler time, an era where people read more, pondered in greater depth, made visiting one another a social art. There was no television, computers, internet and telephones had just come into existence. The automobile was invented during these years. The book is fascinating in a historical realm as well as entering Maud's mind and gaining a perspective on her outlook of life and those around her. I enjoyed this book thoroughly and anyone who is a fan of Lucy Maud Montgomery will relish this book and treasure it greatly. It added dimension to my life because people have always intriged me and what their thoughts are, and where they get inspiration to write about their ideas. By reading this book, it added music and dimension to my soul. She freely discusses her love life and her miseries and joys. Read it! You will never forget it. The following journals that were published were just as compelling to read. I own them all in my personal library. My thanks to the publishers: Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston.
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Summary: The Life of Canada's Most Beloved Author
Review: This is the most interesting and enjoyable diary I've ever read. It's no wonder that this was a best-seller when it was first published. L. M. Montgomery, who liked to be called Maud, was a remarkable novelist and diarist. Most of her readers love her for the Anne and Emily books, and I'm a fan of her fiction myself, but I believe her greatest literary achievement was her journals. I also believe that her best novels which will live on are the first two Emily books, Anne of Green Gables, Anne's House of Dreams, Rilla of Ingleside, and the Blue Castle. Also, of her thousand or more poems and short stories, about a dozen of them are outstanding little works which should not perish.These early journals start when Maud was 14 and end when she's 36, a year before her marriage to the Rev. Ewan Macdonald. Maud's ability to pen a compelling narrative makes the journals read almost like a novel. She writes about her teenage years full of friendships; her year-long stay with her father and his bitchy new wife with whom she didn't get along; her college days full of classes and courtships (she would turn down several marriage proposals); her years as a teacher when she met and fell madly in love with the eldest son of the family she was boarding with; and then the dull and frustrating years of living with and looking after her aging grandmother, which nevertheless did have its happy days, including professional success as a writer, the peak of which was the publication of her classic "Anne of Green Gables." This journal is a most remarkable achievement of a most remarkable woman. David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness"
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Summary: Best of Montgomery's Journals
Review: Volume II is easily the best of Maud's journals; it is the one that I "dip" into whenever I have a few moments or need a bedtime book and consequently is starting to show some wear and tear. It covers the most dramatic points in her life--her marriage, birth of her sons, the discovery of her husband's mental illness, and the death of her best friend, as well as her most prolific years as a writer. She hasn't yet begun to hide as much in her journals, which makes the third and fourth volumes frustrating to read. Since anyone reading the second volume will probably go on to read them all, I should say here that third volume was rather tedious with the lawsuits and maid problems, and number four, though weirdly compelling, was painful to read as her imminent breakdown is all to evident--it is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I wonder if the journals of her last years will ever be published-- I understand that there are problems with people still living, etc.
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