#rilla blythe

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: Anne of Green Gables First Lines

The icon of Canadian girlhood needs no introduction, as Anne of Green Gables is a global phenomenon at this point. What those of you who read the first book at like age ten and then didn't bother exploring further might not know, however, is that LM Montgomery wrote a whole Anne series. So how did she catch a reader's attention? Let's find out!

"Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof."

-- Anne of Green Gables

"A tall, slim girl, 'half-past sixteen,' with serious gray eyes and hair which her friends called auburn, had sat down on the broad red sandstone doorstep of a Prince Edward Island farmhouse one ripe afternoon in August, firmly resolved to construe so many lines of Virgil."

-- Anne of Avonlea

"'Harvest is ended and summer is gone,' quoted Anne Shirley, gazing across the shorn fields dreamily."

-- Anne of the Island

"(Letter from Anne Shirley, B.A., Principal of Summerside High School, to Gilbert Blythe, medical student at Redmond College, Kingsport.)

Windy Poplars,

Spook's Lane,

S'side, P. E. I.,

Monday, September 12th.

DEAREST:

Isn't that an address!"

-- Anne of the Windy Poplars 

"'Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,' said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky."

-- Anne's House of Dreams

"'How white the moonlight is tonight!' said Anne Blythe to herself, as she went up the walk of the Wright garden to Diana Wright's front door, where little cherry-blossom petals were coming down on the salty, breeze-stirred air."

-- Anne of Ingleside

"It was a clear, apple-green evening in May, and Four Winds Harbour was mirroring back the clouds of the golden west between its softly dark shores. The sea moaned eerily on the sand-bar, sorrowful even in spring, but a sly, jovial wind came piping down the red harbour road along which Miss Cornelia’s comfortable, matronly figure was making its way towards the village of Glen St. Mary."

-- Rainbow Valley 

"It was a warm, golden-cloudy, lovable afternoon. In the big living-room at Ingleside Susan Baker sat down with a certain grim satisfaction hovering about her like an aura; it was four o'clock and Susan, who had been working incessantly since six that morning, felt that she had fairly earned an hour of repose and gossip."

-- Rilla of Ingleside

[jomiddlemarch]

That it alone is high fantastical

“Oh, Mother, you’ll never guess! You’ll never guess in century of guessing!” Rilla cried out, sounding so much as she had as a little girl, for a moment, Anne could convince herself the War had never happened and that somewhere in Rainbow Valley, Walter sat writing a crown of sonnets in his leather-bound journal, his face dappled by the light, back braced against the bole of a birch tree, his grey eyes unfocused as he searched for his next word.

There was still a white stone in the graveyard. Shirley was in Toronto, having refused (albeit politely) to return to Glen St. Mary, much to Susan’s dismay, and Jem walked with a pronounced limp, his uneven gait announcing him as much as Mary’s voice.

There was a mystery there, Jem and Mary Vance, but Anne couldn’t see any way through it and Gilbert, lying beside her in bed, both of them tired but sleepless, told her not to try. Jem had seemed less removed, less falsely cheerful lately, and had begun talking about the medical course again, perhaps a specialty in obstetrics, a hospital practice. As far away from men dying in battle as he can get, Gilbert had observed and Anne had recalled Joyce’s little face, white as a mayflower blossom, and held her tongue.

Rilla, remarkably, given her exuberant entrance, had done the same in the absence of Anne’s response. Miss Oliver had left Ingleside some weeks ago, so there was no one to suggest Rilla either elaborate or calm herself, as her likeness to a whistling copper tea-kettle was increasingly pronounced.

“If I’ll never guess, dear, you must tell me,” Anne said. It was a relief that Rilla could still be the young girl she ought to be, for all that she wore Ken Ford’s diamond ring on her finger and was capable of a brisk, warm matronliness when it came to raising Jims, now reserved for the writing of letters to his new British stepmother and clucking over the missives she received.

“Faith Meredith has eloped!”

Anne did admit to herself she would never have guessed that, because for all her imagination, she wouldn’t have guessed something impossible.

“But, Rilla, Jem is with your father today, doing the Lowbridge rounds. Susan and I packed a lunch with plenty of pie for Dad and some of that flapjack Jem took to after being in England,” Anne said. He’d been in hospital in England, recovering from the injuries he’d sustained at the Front, in the prison camp, during his escape, none of which was spoken of. Only flapjack and stewed tea and how no cook in England was a patch on Susan and that you may tie to, uttered with some semblance of his old roguish humor.

“I didn’t say she married Jem, Mother!” Rilla exclaimed. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright. She had a look of Gilbert at his most delighted about him, an expression Anne remembered from their childhood. Anne opened her mouth to speak but Rilla interrupted.

“It’s Bertie Shakespeare Drew! Faith Meredith is Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare!” Rilla said.

If Anne hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have, suddenly and gracelessly. As it was, the shirt she’d been mending fell from her lap.

“That’s—why, Rilla, are you sure?”

“I heard it directly from Mary Vance,” Rilla said, lifting a hand to stop Anne from speaking. “And Miss Cornelia Bryant. You know Miss Cornelia has no taste for gossip. Miss Cornelia’d heard it from Mrs. Meredith—”

“Poor Rosemary,” Anne said, before she could stop herself.

“Why poor Rosemary? I suppose they thought Faith and Jem would make a go of it, at least, perhaps Reverend Meredith and Mrs. Meredith did, but the War’s done funny things to people and Faith and Jem, they just didn’t fit any longer,” Rilla said. Sometimes, Anne felt Rilla reminded her of someone she couldn’t name and realized her youngest daughter spoke with the wisdom Anne’s own mother might have had. Plenty of folks in the Glen would find such a thought eerie, but Anne was comforted, for all that she ought to be the one offering a thoughtful explanation rather than receiving it.

“I suppose I meant the surprise, an elopement—”

“They must not have wanted to wait. Or were afraid someone would try to talk them out of it. Bertie’s mother maybe,” Rilla said.

Rosemary or her father, Anne thought. Jem, if he’d been given the chance, perhaps. Perhaps not, if Rilla was correct.

“Bertie Shakespeare Drew,” Anne said. “I remember when he was born. He’s just Jem’s age.”

“He’s not much like you remember him, Mother. He’s all tall and stalwart now and they say he’s going in for engineering, that he learned quite a bit in France, found he had a talent for that sort of thing. And his ears don’t stick out quite so much anymore,” Rilla said.

“There’re more things on heav’n and earth,” Anne said, mangling the quote a bit, fairly certain Rilla would not correct her. “D’you suppose Faith calls him Bertie? Or his full name—it’s quite a mouthful.”

Queenly Faith Meredith, the undisputed beauty of Glen St. Mary, who had a sense of humor but also a sense of herself as beyond any teasing, now to be Mrs. Bertie Shakespeare Drew. Anne smiled to herself and thought how Mary Vance would find a way to make Jem grin over it all. She’s lucky to get him, Mary would say, reversing the order the Glen would have assumed, and Mary, canny and unexpectedly kind, would have the right of it, perhaps.

Susan would be quite outraged and the pastry of her next pie might suffer for it, but Gilbert had always taken an unchristian glee in Susan’s outrage and wouldn’t mind the pastry being a bit heavier. It was still the best piecrust on Prince Edward Island, now that Mrs. Rachel Lynde was no longer living to give Susan a run for her money.

“Miss Cornelia said Faith was heard to call him Will, when she spoke to her parents. It’s after Shakespeare of course, and because he was so determined they marry,” Rilla said. 

“And because Faith wanted to,” Anne said. She wasn’t sure if she meant the elopement or the name, but it was all of a piece.

“Miss Cornelia said they’d gone to New York for their honeymoon and she hoped Faith didn’t come back with a bunch of silly Yankee airs but Mary and I didn’t think that was likely,” Rilla said, sitting down beside Anne, picking up the shirt and starting to sew.

“She didn’t come back from England any different, after all,” Rilla said.

“Except that she didn’t marry your brother,” Anne replied.

“D’you know, Mother, even without the War, I don’t think they’d ever have gone through with it, Faith and Jem,” Rilla said. “It was, how shall I put it, like a childhood fairy tale, the honorable knight and the maiden fair, all sorts of adventures they had in Rainbow Valley. They were always going to grow up. We all were.”

Not Walter, Anne’s heart said. Not Joyce.

“I’m glad of Ken’s name, anyway. And don’t worry, I wouldn’t elope for anything. I want our families around us, as many as we can get, even if we have to wait. We’re rather good at that,” Rilla said. She’d finished the one shirt and picked up another. She peered at it, frowned. “I can’t think what Dad does to his clothes—”

“I’ve made up a thousand stories to try to explain that and I still don’t think I’ve figured it out,” Anne said. “Some things, my darling girl, are beyond explanation.”

This one's for @freyafrida because I didn't manage to squeeze Faith/Bertie Shakespeare into my Jem/Mary fic...

[alwayschasingrainbows]

I wish we were given some Little Rilla & Little Shirley's interactions, for example:

Shirley and Rilla doing "art projects" together; Shirley drawing detailed pictures of planes and machines with Rilla lurking over his shoulder, chattering endlessly and creating a huge mess with her paints and crayons;

Shirley and Rilla coming up with a plan to get some cookies before dinner; Shirley distracting Susan with his bruised knee while Rilla creeps into the kitchen, ninja-style, to "rescue" the cookies;

Shirley reading stories to Rilla when he is seven and she is five;

Rilla insisting on following Shirley everywhere he goes while the older children are in school, hoping to "find an adventure";

Rilla "helping" Shirley to dig the worms for Robin Cock (Rilla's "help" would be pointing out places where Shirley hasn't dug yet and saying "No, I am not digging. I am a lady");

Rilla being annoying little sister;

Shirley's big brother moments;

Playing hide and seek; Rilla choosing very obvious hiding places (for example, under the table) and giggling all the time, while Shirley pretends to have difficulty finding her; Shirley coming up with the best hideouts;

Shirley calling Rilla "Roly-Poly" to annoy her a little;

Just... I wish we got to see these two littlest Blythes together.

[batrachised]

Rilla of Ingleside holds a special place among my heart with the Anne series, because Rilla is one of the more interesting characters of Anne's children. Most of the other children are who they are from the beginning and stay that way; Jem remains dashing, Walter remains sensitive, even if the characteristics develop a more adult flavor as they grow up. But Rilla changes a lot. Rilla, at the beginning of Rilla of Ingleside, is flighty and airheaded. Not who we'd expect the daughter of the beloved Anne to be. She's immature, self-involved, and selfish, but believe it or not, I don't mean that harshly, because Rilla is also fourteen. If she were in modern day, I describe Rilla as a future influencer, obsessed with her instagram likes and insistent on getting pictures just so. Rilla wants to go to socials and dance with handsome boys and wear pretty shoes even if they cut her feet open and seem older than she is, and she does all of that and more, for all intents and purposes going to be more self-involved than ever with every passing year.

And then WWI hits. And everything changes.

I once read, although I'm going off of memory here, that Rilla of Ingleside holds a unique place as a semi-historical document, because it gives insight into what life was like during WWI on those little Canadian islands like PEI. Places where the war was very far away, yet all too close. You really feel the effects of the war in Rilla; LM Montgomery does a masterful job of describing all the young men leaving, the laughing disdain for the war that turns into a grim understanding of what it really is, what it really costs, and the quiet every day horror of it. In incredibly effective line of the book, one of the characters drearily comments how waiting for the mail every day used to be exciting, but now is torture. Imagine only getting updates sporadically, every few weeks, as your husband or brother or sweetheart or father is off at war, hearing the mail and knowing that this time, this time could be the time in which you learn that they're never coming back (on that note, the line Somewhere in France genuinely makes me tear up).

This is the new world Rilla faces. Dances are gone, because the men are off being slaughtered; socials are war focused; shoes need to be saved to avoid frivolous spending; the world has been turned upside down. She's forced to grow up very quickly, and very grimly, although there are quite a few bumps on the way. That's the charm of the book to me--it's classic LM Montgomery, all the way through, with gossiping housekeepers and wistful young women and characters who seem lived in and real, but also--it's world war 1. And LM Montgomery doesn't sugarcoat it. One scene in the book shows a character crying after learning that soldiers were bayonetting babies.

The whimsy of Anne of Green Gables faces the horror of WWI, and although you'd think the two would clash, LM Montgomery merges them masterfully. The whimsy simply makes the horror all the more cutting, and the horror makes the whimsy all the more sweet. Rilla faces all the typical trials of an LM Montgomery heroine, but she starts from a different place--she's much more shallow than a typical LM Montgomery heroine--and the path she walks is harder in a lot of ways. It's Anne of Green Gables, but with the shadow of WWI over it; the sense of the deep evil in the world that touches even our beloved PEI, but also the recognition of how powerful the community's small light is in a dark, dark time.

[ynhart]

Found this sketch of Walter & Rilla in my procreate gallery...

[gogandmagog]

Has anyone here abouts played the 'Oh my Anne' game? The teaser has little Rilla deaf, which is quite the thought-provoking choice, but I'm way intrigued about the rest, if anyone's done actual game play?

[ickle-ronnie]

Rilla of Ingleside *SPOILERS!!!* 

Your sign to read the books.

Rilla of Ingleside MESSY appreciation post

This book was perfect. The amount of emotions I felt while reading it. It made me laugh and it made me cry. I never thought that an Anne of green gables related book would ever make me cry this much but it did.

The humor was on point. I was literally shaking with laughter at some points. Susan MY QUEEN chasing whiskers on the moon for proposing to her with an iron pot is my DREAM. Susan thinking that Rilla just got a husband out of nowhere. Anne thinking "Who would want to marry this baby" 💀 AND SO MANY MORE. I also love the little shirbert things.

After *SPOILER!!!* Walter's death I literally had to go hide in the washroom to weep. Another one of my book boyfriends is dead. Walter is by favourite Blythe child.

This book describes the feeling of the women who had to stay and wait while the men fought in wars perfectly. I mean I wasn't there but um yeah 🧍‍♀️

Rilla was such a relatable character. When I read about her hating babies I said FINALLY! And her screaming in the theatre? Me written all over it. Her wanting beaux and getting scared after 2. We've all been there. Her crying after rejecting that other guy (I have a terrible memory). This is so me and I have a story to prove it.

ANYWAYS THIS IS YOUR SIGN TO READ THE BOOKS!! YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

[anneofgreengablesincorrectquotes]

Walter Blythe: I want to be more decisive.

Rilla Blythe: About what?

Walter Blythe: I don’t know, there’s so many options.

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

Bertha Marilla 'Rilla' Blythe from Anne of Green Gables by L.M Montgomery-Bisexual

Requested by @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

Status: Alive

[thenavybluet-shirt]

“well, she would be wiser in future, but meanwhile a large and very unpalatable slice of humble pie had to be eaten, and Rilla Blythe was no fonder of that wholesome article of diet than the rest of us”

-Rilla of Ingleside, L. M. Montgomery

[a-lesson-neverlearned]

"Ahora entiendo por qué los bebés lloran de noche. De noche todo pesa más sobre mi alma y es imposible verle el lado bueno a las cosas."

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Rilla la de Ingleside.

[rosepompadour]

She had her own inner life of dream and fancy. She fashioned secret drama for herself out of everything she heard or saw or read and sojourned in realms of wonder and romance. "Far, far away" had always been words of magic to her.

- L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside (1939)

[alwayschasingrainbows]

FOUND THE MOST SURPRISING PARALLEL:

Peter Penhallow & Rilla Blythe

"When she had carried him out to the kitchen to dress him, he had lifted his head of his own power and stared all around the room with bright eager eyes." (Tangled Web - about Peter Penhallow)

"That child was not an hour old when she raised her head and looked at the doctor. I have never seen the like of it in all my life." (Anne of Ingleside - anout Rilla Blythe)

We stan curious babies!!!!

Fun fact: Lucy Maud Montgomery's own son - Stuart - lifted his head on his own half an hour after he was born.

[shirleyjblythe]

And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that.

Walter Blythe sits down to begin his last letter home.

From Rilla of Ingleside, by L.M. Montgomery.

[batrachised]

it’s me again LMAOO have you read katherine-with-a-k’s Four of Cups??

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/14264838/1/

Apologies for this very late response! I got distracted because, upon receiving this ask, I opened the fic and got caught up in the first chapter lolol - thanks for sending this!!

[anneofgreengablesthings]

so @shirleyjblythe posted a super fun poll to guess Shirley's middle name so of course I decided to research all the Blythe children's names bc apparently I don't know what to do with myself until school starts again!! give them a follow bc I am HERE for the Shirley appreciation

Joyce Blythe (deceased) is the only Blythe child not named for someone else. Anne wanted to call her Joy bc she was overjoyed at having a baby.

ok so Jem is actually James Matthew Blythe but they call him Jem (after Captain Jim and Matthew, in House of Dreams Anne says they were the two best men she knew outside of Gil)

Walter is apparently the next oldest, which I never put together - he is older than the twins. He is Walter Cuthbert Blythe in honor of Matthew and Marilla, and the Walter is in honor of Anne's father, Walter Shirley, who died shortly after her birth.

The twins are Anne and Diana (Nan and Di for short) after Anne and Diana of course. We don't learn their middle names.

Shirley is named after Anne's parents (Walter and Bertha Shirley) but we don't learn his middle name. Maybe something for Gil's side of the family?

Rilla is Betha Marilla Blythe, after Anne's birth mother (Bertha Shirley) and adoptive mother (Marilla Cuthbert)