Details

Title

The Royal Readers No VI

Publication Date

1887

Publisher

Mackinlay

Place of Publication

Halifax

Genre

book

Abstract

Thomas Nelson and Sons began publishing the Royal Readers and a companion “Royal School” series in 1877. The Readers were used (and adapted and revised for) schools across the Commonwealth well into the 20th century. The Readers include 8 volumes beginning with an “Infant Reader” and a “Primer” for young children learning to read, each text increasing in difficulty and depth until this, “No. 6,” the final volume. This volume, published in Halifax by a Nelson partner in 1887, was likely very close to the edition Montgomery herself would have used in school. The Readers include a variety of works from classic literature–both poetry and prose–alongside exercises and lessons in usage and punctuation, short essays on history and culture, and miscellaneous allegories and fables. This 6th Reader, as the Table of Contents shows, introduced Montgomery to many a text, like Scott’s long poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’, that she remembered, reread, or alluded to in her fiction. In addition, Montgomery’s scrapbook outlines the English portion of the entrance examination to Prince of Wales College, which she sat for in 1893. Students were asked to prepare for the exam by studying the first 200 pages of this very Reader (see the timetable for the exam that Montgomery pasted into her scrapbook here). Recitation pieces like ‘Bingen on the Rhine’ and ‘Edinburgh after Flodden’ appear in ‘Anne of Green Gables,’ where she gave the the former title, to Gilbert Blythe to recite in chapter 19’s Debating Club concert. You can peruse pages of others in the Reader series here.

Type of Item

contemporaneous