Bleak Island

The publisher must be quoted: “Adultery, illegitimacy, misogyny, revenge, murder, despair, bitterness, hatred, and death—usually not the first terms associated with L.M. Montgomery.” But, indeed, they are the subjects that at least partly inform this “rediscovered” work, intended to be the ninth volume in Montgomery's enduringly popular series about Anne (Shirley) Blythe. To be fair, one could also cite love, redemption, forgiveness, justice, wisdom, harmony, loyalty and birth as terms that have equal claim in this unique work of fiction. But these are themes more commonly identified with Montgomery and her Anne series and would not necessarily serve a publisher’s marketing plans quite so well.

Readers familiar with Montgomery and her work—there are legions of them—already know that The Blythes Are Quoted is the much anticipated, unabridged and complete version of an earlier work, The Road to Yesterday, which in 1974 was published as a set of short...