Of the earlier volumes of L. M. Montgomery's journals, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields has "These diaries possess the crisp, honest, unsparing voice of a real woman who fought all her life to bring her two selves the celebrated writer and the unloved child." Now comes the much anticipated fourth, and penultimate, volume in the series, covering the tumultuous period from 1929 to 1935. By 1929 Montgomery was 54 and known world-wide as the author of Anne of Green Gables . Yet with the stock market crash came a severe drop in her royalties and other troubling financial problems. Tremendous personal difficulties Montgomery witnessed her husband's total nervous breakdown, faced concerns over her own mental state, and became the unwilling object of a young woman's passionate declaration of love. Yet this is not a period without joy, as the volume opens with exuberant travels to Prince Edward Island and western Canada and ends with her looking forward to a new life in Toronto. For anyone wishing to better understand this complex and gifted author, as well as the time and place in which she lived, these journals offer a wealth of insight and information.