Details

Title

The Heart of the Ancient Wood

Author

Roberts, Charles G. D.

Publication Date

1900

Publisher

Silver, Burdett and Company

Place of Publication

Boston

Physical Description

276 p. illus. 20 cm

Collection

L.M. Montgomery Institute.

Note

In a 1924 article called “Symposium on Canadian Fiction in Which Canadian Authors Express Their Preferences,” Montgomery and a variety of other authors—including Isabel Ecclestone Mackay, Bliss Carman, William Arthur Deacon, and Nellie McClung—were asked to name their “Three Favorite Novels by Canadian Writers. Montgomery confessed that she would love to list Frederick Philip Grove’s “Over the Prairie Trails” in her answer, but it is a collection of nonfiction. She then answered the brief and chose three titles: Roberts’ “Heart of the Ancient Wood,” Duncan’s “Doctor Luke of the Labrador,” and MacMurchy’s “The Child’s House.”. About Roberts she noted that “I love this book because it is one of those fairy tales the human heart craves. I love it because its scene is laid in the woods which are and always have been realms of romance for me; and subtlest and most potent reason of all, I love it because I read it and re-read it first in the magic years of early youth, and every time I open it I find my lost girlhood between its covers, and while I read it am immortally young once more” (see “The L.M. Montgomery Reader Volume One: A Life in Print,” ed. Lefebvre, pp. 207–8). The book tells the story of a mother and daughter, Miranda, in late 19th century New Brunswick who move to a cabin deep in the woods, leaving behind town life and the gossip in it. Miranda meets another nature-loving young man also seeking the “heart” of hte woods. While the book is a novel, it spends long passages describing, and revelling in, the beauty of the woods. Montgomery readers might liken Roberts’ style to the fictional John Foster of Montgomery’s “Blue Castle.”

Genre

book

Type of Item

contemporaneous