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About the Book

First published in 1931 by McClelland and Stewart

A Tangled Web is a multi-threaded story, of the lives of the large Dark and Penhallow family as they compete to inherit Aunt Becky’s heirloom jug.  Sixty intermarriages between the Darks and Penhalows over many generations have created a complex web of family relations.  Many characters, romantic, comic, and tragic populate the novel, but there are five major “strands” each with its own heroine or hero, most of them love stories.  Dr. Roger Penhallow is in love with Gay Penhallow, the youngest heroine of the novel, whose springtime romance with Noel Gibson is threatened by the arrival of the chic Nan Penhallow.  Joscelyn Dark has been estranged from her husband Hugh Dark for ten years for reasons no one can fathom. Peter Penhallow, an unorthodox explorer, falls violently in love with his sworn enemy, the devoted war widow Donna Dark.  Margaret Penhallow is a faded and dreamy old maid who feels obliged to marry the pompous Pennycuik Dark, while little Brian Dark is a lonely, unloved, illegitimate orphan.  Finally, the two fisherman and first cousins, Big Sam and Little Sam Dark, suddenly quarrel after living together for thirty years.

Creation and Publication

notes behind the writing and publication of A Tangled Web, including Montgomery’s own comments, the original manuscript, etc.

Library

poetry, songs, and other literary allusions in A Tangled Web

Bookcovers

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