The Road to Yesterday / The Blythes are Quoted
About the Book
The Road to Yesterday first published in 1974 by McGrawHill-Ryerson
The Blythes are Quoted first published in 2009 by Penguin Canada
..I seem to be the only person in Mowbray Narrows or Glen St. Mary who doesn’t like Mrs. Blythe…or any of the Ingleside people. Perhaps I’ve always heard them praised too highly. That sometimes has the effect of turning you against people, don’t you think..? - “Some Fools and a Saint,” The Blythes are Quoted
The Road to Yesterday is a short story collection set in Glen St. Mary, during the years Anne’s children are growing up, to beyond Rilla of Ingleside. Most of the stories take place before World War I, but the last four stories take place after the war. Two of Anne’s grandchildren, Walter Blythe and Gilbert Ford, are named in a story set during World War II. Anne and her family are alternately admired or envied by others in the neighbourhood as the private family dramas or comic romances of people in the Glen are contrasted against the Blythes.
Novels
- Anne of Green Gables
- Anne of Avonlea
- Anne of the Island
- Anne of Windy Poplars
- Anne’s House of Dreams
- Anne of Ingleside
- Rainbow Valley
- Rilla of Ingleside
Short Story Collections
The Road to Yesterday was originally written by L. M. Montgomery under the title The Blythes are Quoted. Montgomery’s manuscript included both short stories with mentions of the Blythes, and poetry ascribed to Anne Shirley and Walter Blythe, which Anne would read aloud to her children in the evening at Ingleside. Although Montgomery had submitted the completed text to her publisher the day she died [1], it was not published until thirty years later, when her son Stuart discovered the manuscript among Montgomery’s belongings. The Road to Yesterday was edited to retain only one poem and presents the short stories in rearranged order.
The Blythes are Quoted was published in its original form in 2009 by Penguin Canada. It is considered to reveal a darker, bleaker side of Montgomery’s writing, with stories that deal with adultery, vengeance, and dysfunctional families. Most of the poetry are springtime and home, but others indicate Montgomery’s despair at an approaching second world war. The collection begins with Walter’s “The Piper”, and ends with “The Aftermath,” a bitter poem concerning the inhumanity of war.
[1] The Gift of Wings, 2008
The Road to Yesterday contains a single poem and 14 short stories.
Canadian Twilight (poem)
- An Afternoon with Mr. Jenkins - Jem Blythe’s friend, eight-year-old Timothy, believes himself to be an orphan. While his Aunts worry mysteriously over his fate, he meets a strange man who is somehow very familiar.
- Retribution - Through Susan Baker’s gossip, Clarissa Wilcox learns that her long-hated enemy David Anderson is dying, and pays him an angst-filled visit.
- The Twins Pretend - Nan and Di’s friends, the imaginative ten-year-old twins Jill and P.G. spend their summer renovating an old Island home.
- Fancy’s Fool - An acquaintance of Anne and Gilbert, the delicate and ethereal Esmé Dalley is engaged to be married to a popular and wealthy young man, although she cannot help feeling haunted by the memory of a ghost.
- A Dream Come True - Anthony Fingold, whose wife gossips frequently with Susan Baker, still dreams secretly of the love of his youth, Caroline…
- Penelope Struts her Theories - Child psychologist Penelope adopts a boy and tries to raise him according to her theories. Anne Blythe’s parenting is compared to Penelope’s.
- The Reconciliation - Mr. Meredith preaches a sermon on forgiveness, inspiring Miss Shelley to dust an old grudge with her girlhood rival Lisle Stephens.
- The Cheated Child - Walter’s friend, eight-year-old orphan Patrick Brewster, comes with a great inheritance and must choose one of his relatives as his guardian.
- Fool’s Errand - Lincoln Burns, whose mother is one of Dr. Blythe’s patients, is pressured to seek a wife after her death.
- The Pot and the Kettle - Chrissie Dunbar, an heiress of the same age as Nan, Di and Rilla, attends a dance where the Blythes and Merediths are present. She meets and falls in love with her neighbour’s gardener at the dance.
- Here Comes the Bride - Susan Baker gossips with Mary Hamilton at a wedding where Rilla is bridesmaid.
- Brother Beware - Anne’s friend, Miss Alma Winkworth, is imprisoned in Rilla and Kenneth Ford’s summer home (called Joe’s Island) when her lover’s brother tries to thwart their romance.
- The Road to Yesterday - Jem’s ex-girlfriend, Suzette King, revisits the Glen St. Mary farm where she played as a child with her cousins and the Blythes.
- A Commonplace Woman - Ursula Anderson relives her dramatic life on her deathbed, while her relatives and doctor gossip about the Dr. Blythe and his grandchildren in WWII.
The Blythes are Quoted contains 15 short stories and 41 poems. The Blythes and Merediths comment briefly after each poem. Jem thinks of his sons Jem Jr. and Walter in one of these dialogues.
Some Fools and a Saint is the short story which was omitted from The Road to Yesterday , but included in The Blythes are Quoted. It deals with a Curtis Burns, a Methodist minister in Mowbray Narrows, who falls in love with a girl at the “haunted” house that he boards at.
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