Rilla of Ingleside

Rilla of Ingleside is the eighth of nine books in the Anne of Green Gables series by Lucy Maud Montgomery, but was the sixth "e;Anne"e; novel in publication order. This book draws the focus back onto a single character, Anne and Gilbert's youngest daughter Bertha Marilla "e;Rilla"e; Blythe. It has a more serious tone, as it takes place during World War I and the three Blythe boys-Jem, Walter, and Shirley-along with Rilla's sweetheart Ken Ford, and playmates Jerry Meredith and Carl Meredith-end up fighting in Europe with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The book is dedicated: "e;To the memory of FREDERICA CAMPBELL MACFARLANE who went away from me when the dawn broke on January 25, 1919-a true friend, a rare personality, a loyal and courageous soul."e; Frederica, Maud's cousin and best friend, grew up in Park Corner, PEI, but died in the worldwide flu epidemic of 1918/19. Frederica may have been the model for Diana Barry, Anne of Green Gables' "e;bosom friend"e;: both had unusual, non-Christian first names, and the fictional Diana's husband was named, perhaps not coincidentally, Fred. Rilla of Ingleside is the only Canadian novel written from a woman's perspective about the First World War by a contemporary. The novel is also groundbreaking as it is one of the first non-Australian texts to mention the Gallipoli campaign and the sacrifice made by the ANZACs. At some point after Montgomery's death in 1942, publishers quietly trimmed Rilla of Ingleside of a few thousand words, removing among other things passages containing historically accurate but now offensive anti-German sentiment. The trimmed version was the only available "e;in print"e; version for decades, until a new, restored and annotated edition of Rilla of Ingleside, edited by Benjamin Lefebvre (editor of Montgomery's The Blythes Are Quoted) and Andrea McKenzie, was published by Viking Canada in October 2010.