A Tangled Web

A Tangled Web is a novel by L. M. Montgomery. It was published in late 1931 by McClelland and Stewart (Canada), Frederick A. Stokes Company (USA), and Hodder and Stoughton (UK) under the title Aunt Becky Began It. It centres on a community consisting mainly of two families, the Penhallows and the Darks. Over three generations, sixty members of the Penhallow family have married sixty members of the Dark family, creating a tangled web of relationships and emotions. The book was not as financially successful as Montgomery's earlier works as it was released after the Wall Street crash of 1929. Parts of the book were adapted from a short story that L.M. Montgomery had released earlier: "A House Divided Against Itself" which appeared in The Canadian Home Journal in March 1930. A story concerning members of the Penhallow family is also detailed in "The Winning of Lucinda" from Chronicles of Avonlea (1912), although this would appear to be a different branch of the family. The United States copyright of A Tangled Web was renewed in 1958. Plot Rebecca Dark (née Penhallow) learns she is dying. A widow with no surviving children, she has been considered the unofficial head of the clan (the extended Dark & Penhallow families) for some time and is known to all of them as Aunt Becky. She has held periodic afternoon gatherings of her clan, which she calls levees, at her home over the years. The clan have a love-hate relationship with her levees, because they fear her sharp tongue, but derive a perverse enjoyment of seeing other members writhing under her digs and slams. She decides to hold a final levee where the reader meets the rest of the characters and learns a bit about them. She reads her self-written obituary to them, to their horror, followed by her will, which disposes of her possessions. Many of them are coveted by at least one member present, but very few of the announced recipients of each item are appreciative. The last item mentioned is the old Dark jug, an antique and prized family heirloom, although not of any great monetary value or artistic merit. She reveals the recipient will not be named now, but in a year's time and produces a heavily sealed envelope which has either a named person or a description of a person who best exemplifies what she feels are worthy qualities.