Warning: If you have a visual impairment, use the manuscript transcript version including the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s foot notes and contextual annotation references.

Chapter 30 - (VERSO)

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Anne, if you’ll ever give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you.”

“About me?” Anne looked rather scared scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed:

“Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school yesterday afternoon (begin subscript)^(end subscript)(begin superscript)when I should have been studying my Canadian history. (end superscript)Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner-hour and I had just got to the chariot-race when school went in. I was simply wild to know how it turned out – although I felt sure Ben Hur must win because it wouldn’t be poetical justice if he didn’t – so I spread the history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and my


PHOTO ANNOTATION

gilt-lettered book cover with a centra image of a girl sprite emerging from water in the woods

"Miss Stacy caught me reading": An incident taken from Montgomery's experience. In 1889, she wrote that "Nate brought me 'Undine' to-day and I read it under the lid of my desk while Miss Gordon thought I was studying history. It is delicious—'Undine,' I mean, not history. You don't catch me calling history delicious! I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them" (Complete Journals, The P.E.I. Years, Volume 1, p. 7).

Undine (1811) is a romantic fairy tale about a water sprite in search of a human soul. This cover, from 1875, indicates the book is as "told to the children."

PHOTO ANNOTATION

soft green book cover with floral details surrounding the title and author names

"Ben Hur": Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880), a popular historical novel written by Lew Wallace (1827-1905). In 1926, Montgomery would see a movie version of the novel, starring Ramon Novarro, and she was not disappointed; she found the chariot race “amazing” (Complete Journals, September 16, 1926, p. 76). Here, the first edition cover of Ben-Hur (1880).