Details

Title

A Hilltop on the Marne

Sub Title

being letters written June 3 - September 8, 1914

Author

Aldrich, Mildred

Publisher

Houghton Mifflin Company / The Riverside Press Cambridge

Place of Publication

Boston and New York

Collection

L.M. Montgomery Institute. Ryrie-Campbell Collection.

Note

On Sunday, March 18, 1917 Montgomery told her journal that “To-day I read ‘a Hilltop on the Marne’—a quite delightful little thing, though lacking the charm of ‘My Home on the Field of Honor’ ‘My Home on the Field of Honor’” (‘L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1911–1917,’ p. 288). While this small comment is Montgomery’s only “review” of the book, digging a bit deeper reveals the title's interesting parallels and connections to other books and thinkers. ‘Hilltop on the Marne’ was Mildred Aldrich’s first of three books adapted from her war-time diaries and letters. Aldrich was a New England-born journalist who wrote for multiple Boston newspapers before moving to France in 1898 to work as a foreign correspondent. In Paris, she became friends with other writers and ex-patriots, including Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. In 1914, Aldrich purchased a house in the country called “Hilltop,” overlooking the Marne river. She had just settled into her new home when war began, and the location of her house gave her, as one officer in the French army later told her, a “front row stage box” view of the war itself. The Battle of the Marne occurred just moments away. Like the Huard’s “Home on the Field of Honor,” Aldrich’s book is an autobiography, a collection of letters, and a series of reflections on the war’s immediate impact on daily life. Readers will have to explore both titles to decide why they think Montgomery found the Huard’s text more “charming.” The full text of the Hilltop can be found, with Aldrich’s photographs, here.

Genre

novel

Type of Item

contemporaneous