The publication of The Blythes Are Quoted has been selected as one of the “10 biggest publishing stories of 2009” on a CBC.ca news story:
Fans of the precocious, freckle-faced redhead from P.E.I. had reason to rejoice this year when an amended version of the final Anne Shirley stories was released under a new title, The Blythes Are Quoted. But the book’s additional 100 pages revealed a darker story – complete with references to adultery and suicide. Novelist Jane Urquhart ably provided a context for these bleak scenes in her comprehensive, unflinching biography of Anne’s author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne’s banner year ended with a triumphant Sotheby’s auction – proof that great CanLit never goes out of fashion.
See “The Year in Books” for the full story.
Excellent interview — fascinated to hear that even an author of LMM’s stature was competing against capricious market demands. Also appreciated your views on the sad, sagging ‘suicide’ debate.
Thanks, Sean! Yes, it’s easy to forget the role that the market plays with LMM, since her work has been around so long, but she did write for a market, after all: not only her twenty novels but more than one thousand periodical pieces over a fifty-year period, from 1890 to 1940.