"It's quite something to go through the book that way - if you've seen her handwriting, you know what I mean," says Woods. "Montgomery scratched things out and made changes to each page. It was not an easy chore to read it that way, but (my daughter) did it."

  The manuscript, believed to have been lost for decades, was in Emily Woods's possession for some 30 years. It has become the latest major addition to the L.M. Montgomery Collection in U of G's Archival and Special Collections at the McLaughlin Library.

  On Jan. 19, U of G will officially recognize the donation of the Rilla of Ingleside manuscript from the Woods family. The manuscript will be kept in a rare book vault in the Archival and Special Collections area and is currently on display in the Wellington County Room.

  "It gives us great pleasure to turn it over to the University of Guelph, where it will be safe and join the rest of the collection, and will provide opportunities for study and research," says Woods.

  Published in 1921, Rilla of Ingleside was planned as the last in the Anne of Green Gables series. It is a First World War story written from a young woman's point of view and has been recognized by historians and women's studies experts for its uniqueness in Canadian literature.

  "It is the first English account from a woman's perspective of how people 'at home' reacted to the war," says Bernard Katz, head of special collections and library development. "It poignantly shows how women reacted to having their husbands, sons, brothers and sweethearts away in Europe fighting under terrible conditions."

  It is also the only original full-length holograph of a Montgomery novel in Ontario, where she wrote most of her books. The rest are housed in the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum in P.E.I., where Montgomery was born and raised. The author of 20 novels and 500 short stories, she moved to Ontario after marrying Presbyterian minister Ewan Macdonald in 1911.

  Woods acquired the manuscript from a member of the Macdonald family as a gift when she was a creative writing teacher. "It was a thrill to actually have it in my hands," she says. "My students were also very excited. Most of them had read the Anne books and were thrilled to have a chance to see her actual handwriting.

  "As a writer, I found it wonderful to see the changes she made as she went along, the things she had written in the margins. It makes you feel good as you're going through the process of writing to see that someone who was a famous writer did the same thing."

  Woods says her family chose to donate the manuscript to U of G because of their connections to the University. Her husband, Murray, is a 1956 OAC graduate. Their son Douglas graduated in 1978, and their nephew Bill Woods graduated in 1973. Bill's daughter and nephew are currently enrolled.

  This month, the library is also housing a special exhibit called "The Visual Imagination of Lucy Maud Montgomery." It includes 156 prints chosen from the library's collection for an exhibition organized and circulated by the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum, with support from Heritage Canada.