The Blue Castle
Encyclopedia
The Blue Castle is a 1926
novel
by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery
, best known for her novel Anne of Green Gables
(1908
).
The story takes place in the early 1920s in the fictional town of Deerwood, located in the Muskoka region of Ontario
, Canada
. Deerwood is based on Bala
, Ontario, which Montgomery visited in 1922. Maps of the two towns show similarities.
This novel is considered one of L.M. Montgomery's few adult works of fiction, along with A Tangled Web
, and is the only book she wrote that is entirely set outside of Prince Edward Island
. It has grown in popularity since being republished in 1990. The book was adapted for the stage twice; in 1982 it was made into a successful Polish musical and ten years later Canadian playwright Hank Stinson authored another version, The Blue Castle: A Musical Love Story.
Valancy decides to move out of her mother's house and take a position as a housekeeper for a friend of hers who is now gravely ill, Cissy Gay. Cissy and Valancy had known each other as children, but Cissy became ostracized from society for having a child out of wedlock, and because of her father, Roaring Abel, and his reckless, sometimes drunken behavior.
Cissy and Valancy share a room and rebuild their friendship. Valancy enjoys being paid a salary and spends her money in ways her family would not approve of, such as purchasing a brightly colored, low-necked dress. She also begins spending time with Barney Snaith, who visits often and is friends with Cissy, but who the townspeople are convinced is either a criminal or the father of Cissy's deceased child.
Just before the end of her life, Cissy confides in Valancy about the man she fell in love with. He offered to marry her when she told him she was pregnant, but she refused because she saw that he did not love her any more. Her baby compensated for her heartbreak, but when her baby died, she was devastated. Cissy eventually passes away and Valancy's family expects her to move back home, having magnanimously decided to forgive her recent behavior. They are momentarily appeased when Valancy agrees that she is definitely not staying with Roaring Abel; however, she does not plan to move back home. Instead, she proposes to Barney, telling him that she is dying and just wants to enjoy the remaining time she has left. She confesses that she has fallen in love with him, but that she does not expect him to feel the same. He agrees to marry her.
Barney takes Valancy to his home on a wooded island (which Valancy discovers is very like the Blue Castle she used to escape to in her imagination), and together they get along very well, though he forbids her to enter a certain room in the house. Together they explore the island, and she quotes to him from books by her favorite author, John Foster, who writes about the great beauty of nature; Foster's books were her escape when Valancy lived with her family. They celebrate Christmas and he gives her a necklace of pearl beads.
Just as the year she was given to live is almost over, Valancy gets her shoe stuck in a train track and is nearly killed by an oncoming train, which Barney saves her from in the nick of time. After the shock passes, Valancy realizes that she should have died, because the doctor had told her any sudden shock would kill her. Barney is likewise stunned by the experience and retreats to his beloved woods to think. Valancy goes back to the doctor, who realizes that he sent Valancy a letter with a diagnosis meant for a Mrs. Sterling, who did have a fatal heart condition; Valancy's condition was never serious.
As she arrives home from the doctor, with Barney still away, she finds a gaudily-dressed man waiting near their home. He introduces himself as Barney's father, Dr. Redfern, the millionaire who invented Redfern's Purple Pills and other patent medicines. Years ago, Barney left town abruptly without word to his father, who had no way of tracking him down until Barney withdrew $15,000 from his bank account to buy Valancy's necklace, alerting his father to his whereabouts. Barney's father wants him to come back to his family.
Fearing that Barney will believe she tricked him into marriage, Valancy decides to leave him and return to her mother's house. While searching for a pencil to write Barney an explanatory note, she goes into his secret room and finds that he is also John Foster, the author of her favorite books. She writes the note and leaves behind the necklace.
Valancy reveals to her family that Barney is a millionaire and the son of the famous Dr. Redfern, as well as John Foster to boot. Barney's millionaire status instantly erases any misgivings her family had about him, and they are determined that Barney and Valancy must stay together. Barney rushes to the house to see Valancy and asks her to come back. At first she refuses, believing that he is only asking her out of pity. When he becomes angry at her, thinking that she is refusing him because she is ashamed of his father's patent medicine business, she realizes he does really love her and agrees to come back to him.
1926 in literature
The year 1926 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...
, best known for her novel Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. Set in 1878, it was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book...
(1908
1908 in literature
The year 1908 in literature involved some significant new books.-New books:*Afawarq Gabra Iyasus - Libb Wolled Tārīk , the first novel in Amharic*Leonid Andreyev - The Seven Who Were Hanged...
).
The story takes place in the early 1920s in the fictional town of Deerwood, located in the Muskoka region of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. Deerwood is based on Bala
Bala, Ontario
Bala is a community located in Muskoka Lakes Township where Lake Muskoka drains into the Moon River at Bala Falls.It is considered one of the hubs of cottage country located north of Toronto. Thus, its year-round population of several hundred is increased by thousands of seasonal residents and...
, Ontario, which Montgomery visited in 1922. Maps of the two towns show similarities.
This novel is considered one of L.M. Montgomery's few adult works of fiction, along with A Tangled Web
A Tangled Web
A Tangled Web is a novel by L. M. Montgomery. It is one of the few books she published that was written mainly for adults. It centers around a community consisting mainly of two families, the Penhallows and the Darks...
, and is the only book she wrote that is entirely set outside of Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...
. It has grown in popularity since being republished in 1990. The book was adapted for the stage twice; in 1982 it was made into a successful Polish musical and ten years later Canadian playwright Hank Stinson authored another version, The Blue Castle: A Musical Love Story.
Plot summary
Valancy Stirling is twenty-nine, unmarried, and has lived her entire life with her gossip-minded family who actively discourage happiness and treat Valancy like a child. When Valancy is diagnosed with a terminal heart ailment, she realizes she has never been happy in her life, and rebels against her family and the colorless life they have imposed on her. She begins by judging them objectively, and worse, telling them exactly what she thinks, causing the Stirling clan to conclude that Valancy has suddenly lost her mind.Valancy decides to move out of her mother's house and take a position as a housekeeper for a friend of hers who is now gravely ill, Cissy Gay. Cissy and Valancy had known each other as children, but Cissy became ostracized from society for having a child out of wedlock, and because of her father, Roaring Abel, and his reckless, sometimes drunken behavior.
Cissy and Valancy share a room and rebuild their friendship. Valancy enjoys being paid a salary and spends her money in ways her family would not approve of, such as purchasing a brightly colored, low-necked dress. She also begins spending time with Barney Snaith, who visits often and is friends with Cissy, but who the townspeople are convinced is either a criminal or the father of Cissy's deceased child.
Just before the end of her life, Cissy confides in Valancy about the man she fell in love with. He offered to marry her when she told him she was pregnant, but she refused because she saw that he did not love her any more. Her baby compensated for her heartbreak, but when her baby died, she was devastated. Cissy eventually passes away and Valancy's family expects her to move back home, having magnanimously decided to forgive her recent behavior. They are momentarily appeased when Valancy agrees that she is definitely not staying with Roaring Abel; however, she does not plan to move back home. Instead, she proposes to Barney, telling him that she is dying and just wants to enjoy the remaining time she has left. She confesses that she has fallen in love with him, but that she does not expect him to feel the same. He agrees to marry her.
Barney takes Valancy to his home on a wooded island (which Valancy discovers is very like the Blue Castle she used to escape to in her imagination), and together they get along very well, though he forbids her to enter a certain room in the house. Together they explore the island, and she quotes to him from books by her favorite author, John Foster, who writes about the great beauty of nature; Foster's books were her escape when Valancy lived with her family. They celebrate Christmas and he gives her a necklace of pearl beads.
Just as the year she was given to live is almost over, Valancy gets her shoe stuck in a train track and is nearly killed by an oncoming train, which Barney saves her from in the nick of time. After the shock passes, Valancy realizes that she should have died, because the doctor had told her any sudden shock would kill her. Barney is likewise stunned by the experience and retreats to his beloved woods to think. Valancy goes back to the doctor, who realizes that he sent Valancy a letter with a diagnosis meant for a Mrs. Sterling, who did have a fatal heart condition; Valancy's condition was never serious.
As she arrives home from the doctor, with Barney still away, she finds a gaudily-dressed man waiting near their home. He introduces himself as Barney's father, Dr. Redfern, the millionaire who invented Redfern's Purple Pills and other patent medicines. Years ago, Barney left town abruptly without word to his father, who had no way of tracking him down until Barney withdrew $15,000 from his bank account to buy Valancy's necklace, alerting his father to his whereabouts. Barney's father wants him to come back to his family.
Fearing that Barney will believe she tricked him into marriage, Valancy decides to leave him and return to her mother's house. While searching for a pencil to write Barney an explanatory note, she goes into his secret room and finds that he is also John Foster, the author of her favorite books. She writes the note and leaves behind the necklace.
Valancy reveals to her family that Barney is a millionaire and the son of the famous Dr. Redfern, as well as John Foster to boot. Barney's millionaire status instantly erases any misgivings her family had about him, and they are determined that Barney and Valancy must stay together. Barney rushes to the house to see Valancy and asks her to come back. At first she refuses, believing that he is only asking her out of pity. When he becomes angry at her, thinking that she is refusing him because she is ashamed of his father's patent medicine business, she realizes he does really love her and agrees to come back to him.
See also
- The Ladies of MissalonghiThe Ladies of MissalonghiThe Ladies of Missalonghi is a short novel by Australian writer Colleen McCullough commissioned for the Hutchinson Novellas series and published in the United States in the Harper Short Novel series in 1987...
, similar novel by Colleen McCulloughColleen McCulloughColleen McCullough-Robinson, , is an internationally acclaimed Australian author.-Life:McCullough was born in Wellington, in outback central west New South Wales, in 1937 to James and Laurie McCullough. Her mother was a New Zealander of part-Māori descent. During her childhood, her family moved...
External links
- The Blue Castle - online text from Project Gutenberg
- The Blue Castle - online text from Project Gutenberg in HTML format
- An L.M. Montgomery Resource Page Resource for all things L.M. Montgomery, includes The Blue Castle Encyclopedia and more on Valancy
- Bala's Museum The setting for The Blue Castle
- The Blue Castle: A Musical Love Story a 1997 musical adapted from the book by Hank Stinson
- The L.M. Montgomery Research Group This scholarly site includes a blog, an extensive bibliography of reference materials, and a complete filmography of all adaptations of Montgomery texts.
- The L.M. Montgomery Literary Society This site includes information about Montgomery's works and life and research from the newsletter, The Shining Scroll. See the article "Muskoka Dream: L.M. Montgomery at Bala Ontario, Creating The Blue Castle" on The Shining Scroll Newsletter Online page.