Audiobook · read by volunteers
Rainbow Valley
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942)
Read by Robin Cotter · 35 chapters · 8 h 51
About the book
Rainbow Valley turns the spotlight from Anne Shirley to the next generation. The six children of Anne and Gilbert grow up at Ingleside, while across the way the four motherless Meredith children run wild at the manse, looked after by a father who is lost in his books and his thoughts. Between them lies a small, enchanted hollow where the children play, invent games and plan their schemes. Their innocent adventures keep stirring up the gossip of the village ladies, and since their father is the new minister, every escapade puts his position at risk. Along the way a sharp-tongued runaway girl turns up and complicates everything. This is a warm, funny and tender story about growing up with kindness, mischief and very little supervision. Robin Cotter reads all thirty-five chapters in just under nine hours, a gentle companion for an evening or a long drive.
Introduction
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) was a Canadian author who became famous with Anne of Green Gables in 1908 and then returned to her red-haired heroine again and again. Rainbow Valley, published in 1919, is the seventh book of the series. Its focus shifts: Anne is now a mother, and the stage belongs to her children and to the Meredith children from the manse.
The book is built from small incidents rather than one grand plot. Chapter titles such as Sheer Gossip, The Good-Conduct Club, A Fast Day and The Ghost on the Dyke hint at the mixture on offer: comic mishaps, village scandal, moments of real feeling and a steady undercurrent of sympathy for children who are doing their best without a mother's guidance. Montgomery writes with her usual eye for the landscape of Prince Edward Island and for the small dramas of a close community.
The recording runs to about 8.9 hours across 35 chapters and is read by a single LibriVox volunteer, Robin Cotter. It works well for readers who already know Anne and for newcomers, since the story stands on its own.
Today the book is a pleasure for anyone who likes affectionate humour, old-fashioned village life and the sense that childhood, with all its muddle, is something to be treasured. Montgomery fans will also notice how the book looks back at earlier volumes while letting new characters take the lead. It rewards patience, because its pleasures lie in the accumulation of small scenes: a quarrel, a dare, a confession, a reconciliation. Heard in sections over several evenings, it feels like a visit to a familiar village.
Public domain
Lucy Maud Montgomery died in 1942: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text