The Blue Castle
Early edition cover
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| Author | L. M. Montgomery |
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| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Romance novel |
| Publisher | McClelland and Stewart (first edition), Frederick A. Stokes (first American edition) |
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Publication date
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1926 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 310 pp (first edition) |
| ISBN | (1992 mass market paperback edition), (2007 trade paperback edition) |
| OCLC | 19674972 |
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 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.
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