Lucy Maud Montgomery Biography

L.M. Montgomery (November 30, 1874 - April 24, 1942), was the pen name of Lucy Maud Montgomery, a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables. The book was an immediate success. The central character, Anne Shirley, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays. Most of the novels were set in Prince Edward Island, and locations within Canada's smallest province became a literary landmark and popular tourist site"?namely Green Gables farm, the genesis of Prince Edward Island National Park. She was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935.

Montgomery's work, diaries and letters have been read and studied by scholars and readers worldwide.

Early life

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London) in Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. Her mother Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery died of tuberculosis when Maud was 21 months old. Stricken with grief over his wife's death, Hugh John Montgomery gave custody to Montgomery's maternal grandparents. Later he moved to Prince Albert, North-West Territories (now Prince Albert, Saskatchewan) when Montgomery was seven. She went to live with her maternal grandparents, Alexander Marquis Macneill and Lucy Woolner Macneill, in the nearby community of Cavendish and was raised by them in a strict and unforgiving manner. Montgomery's early life in Cavendish was very lonely. Despite having relatives nearby, much of her childhood was spent alone. Montgomery credits this time of her life, in which she created many imaginary friends and worlds to cope with her loneliness, with developing her creativity.

Montgomery completed her early education in Cavendish with the exception of one year (1890-1891) during which time she was in Prince Albert with her father and her stepmother, Mary Ann McRae. In November 1890, while in Prince Albert, Montgomery's first work, a poem entitled "On Cape LeForce," was published in the Charlottetown paper, The Daily Patriot. She was as excited about this as she was about her return to her beloved Prince Edward Island in 1891. The return to Cavendish was a great relief to her. Her time in Prince Albert was unhappy,for she did not get along with her stepmother and because by, "... Maud"?s account, her father's marriage was not a happy one." In 1893, following the completion of her grade school education in Cavendish, she attended Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, and obtained a teacher's license. She completed the two-year program in one year. In 1895 and 1896, she studied literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Writing career, romantic interests, and family life

Published books and suitors

Upon leaving Dalhousie, Montgomery worked as a teacher in various Prince Edward Island schools. Though she did not enjoy teaching, it afforded her time to write. Beginning in 1897, she began to have her short stories published in magazines and newspapers. Montgomery was prolific and had over 100 stories published from 1897 to 1907.

During her teaching years, Montgomery had numerous love interests. As a highly fashionable young woman, she enjoyed "slim, good looks" and won the attention of several young men. In 1889, at 14, Montgomery began a relationship with a Cavendish boy named Nate Lockhart. To Montgomery, the relationship was merely a humorous and witty friendship. It ended abruptly when Montgomery refused his marriage proposal.

The early 1890s brought unwelcome advances from John A. Mustard and Will Pritchard. Mustard, her teacher, quickly became her suitor; he tried to impress her with his knowledge of religious matters. His best topics of conversation were his thoughts on Predestination and "other dry points of theology", which held little appeal for Montgomery. During the period when Mustard's interest became more pronounced, Montgomery found a new interest in Will Pritchard, the brother of her friend Laura Pritchard. This friendship was more amiable but, again, he felt more for Montgomery than she did for him. When Pritchard sought to take their friendship further, Montgomery resisted. Montgomery refused both marriage proposals; the former was too narrow-minded, and the latter was merely a good chum. She ended the period of flirtation when she moved to Prince Edward Island. However, she and Pritchard did continue to correspond for over six years, until Pritchard caught influenza and died in 1897.

In 1897, Montgomery accepted the proposal of Edwin Simpson, who was a student in French River near Cavendish. Montgomery wrote that she accepted his proposal out of a desire for "love and protection" and because she felt her prospects were rather low. While teaching in Lower Bedeque, she had a brief but passionate romantic attachment to Herman Leard, a member of the family with which she boarded. In 1898, after much unhappiness and disillusionment, Montgomery broke off her engagement to Simpson. Montgomery no longer sought romantic love.

In 1898, Montgomery moved back to Cavendish to live with her widowed grandmother. For a nine-month period between 1901 and 1902, she worked in Halifax as a substitute proofreader for the newspapers Morning Chronicle and The Daily Echo. Montgomery was inspired to write her first books during this time on Prince Edward Island. Until her grandmother's death in March 1911, Montgomery stayed in Cavendish to take care of her. This coincided with a period of considerable income from her publications. Although she enjoyed this income, she was aware that "marriage was a necessary choice for women in Canada."?

Marriage and family

In 1908, Montgomery published her first book, Anne of Green Gables. An immediate success, it established Montgomery's career, and she would write and publish material (Including numerous sequels to Anne) continuously for the rest of her life. Shortly after her grandmother's death in 1911, she married Ewen (spelled in her notes and letters as "Ewan") Macdonald (1870-1943), a Presbyterian minister, and they moved to Ontario where he had taken the position of minister of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Leaskdale in present-day Uxbridge Township, also affiliated with the congregation in nearby Zephyr. Montgomery wrote her next eleven books from the Leaskdale manse. The structure was subsequently sold by the congregation and is now the Lucy Maud Montgomery Leaskdale Manse Museum.

The Macdonalds had three sons; the second was stillborn. The great increase of Montgomery's writings in Leaskdale is the result of her need to escape the hardships of real life. Montgomery underwent several periods of depression while trying to cope with the duties of motherhood and church life and with her husband"?s attacks of religious melancholia (endogenous major depressive disorder) and deteriorating health: "For a woman who had given the world so much joy, [life] was mostly an unhappy one." For much of her life, writing was her one great solace. Also, during this time, Montgomery was engaged in a series of "acrimonious, expensive, and trying lawsuits with the publisher L.C. Page, that dragged on until she finally won in 1929."

Montgomery stopped writing about Anne in about 1920, writing in her journal that she had tired of the character. She preferred instead to create books about other young, female characters, feeling that her strength was writing about characters who were either very young or very old. Other series written by Montgomery include the "Emily" and "Pat" books, which, while successful, did not reach the same level of public acceptance as the "Anne" volumes. She also wrote a number of stand-alone novels, which were also generally successful, if not as successful as her Anne books.

Later life

In 1926, the family moved into the Norval Presbyterian Charge, in present-day Halton Hills, Ontario, where today the Lucy Maud Montgomery Memorial Garden can be seen from Highway 7.

In 1935, upon her husband's retirement, Montgomery moved to Swansea, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, buying a house which she named Journey's End, situated on Riverside Drive along the east bank of the Humber River. Montgomery continued to write, and (in addition to writing other material) returned to writing about Anne after a 15-year hiatus, filling in previously unexplored gaps in the chronology she had developed for the character. She published Anne of Windy Poplars in 1936 and Anne of Ingleside in 1939. Jane of Lantern Hill, a non-Anne novel, was also composed around this time and published in 1937.

In the last year of her life, Montgomery completed what she intended to be a ninth book featuring Anne, titled The Blythes Are Quoted. It included fifteen short stories (many of which were previously published) that she revised to include Anne and her family as mainly peripheral characters; forty-one poems (most of which were previously published) that she attributed to Anne and to her son Walter, who died as a soldier in the Great War; and vignettes featuring the Blythe family members discussing the poems. The book was delivered to Montgomery's publisher on the day of her death, but for reasons unexplained, the publisher declined to issue the book at the time. Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre speculates that the book's dark tone and anti-war message (Anne speaks very bitterly of WWI in one passage) may have made the volume unsuitable to publish in the midst of the second world war.

An abridged version of this book, which shortened and reorganized the stories and omitted all the vignettes and all but one of the poems, was published as a collection of short stories called The Road to Yesterday in 1974, more than 30

years after the original work had been submitted. A complete edition of The Blythes Are Quoted, edited by Benjamin Lefebvre, was finally published in its entirety by Viking Canada in October 2009, more than 67 years after it was composedl.

Death

Montgomery died on April 24, 1942. A note was found beside her bed, reading, in part, "I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best." Montgomery died from coronary thrombosis in Toronto. However, it was revealed by her granddaughter, Kate Macdonald Butler, in September 2008 that Montgomery suffered from depression - possibly as a result of caring for her mentally ill husband for decades - and may have taken her own life via a drug overdose. But, there is another point of view. According to Mary Rubio, who wrote a biography of Montgomery, Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings (2008), the message may have been intended to be a journal entry as part of a journal that can no longer be found, rather than a simple suicide note.

During her lifetime, Montgomery published 20 novels, over 500 short stories, an autobiography, and a book of poetry. Aware of her fame, by 1920 Montgomery began editing and recopying her journals, presenting her life as she wanted it remembered. In doing so certain episodes were changed or omitted.

She was buried at the Cavendish Community Cemetery in Cavendish following her wake in the Green Gables farmhouse and funeral in the local Presbyterian church.

Legacy

Collections

The L. M. Montgomery Institute, founded in 1993, at the University of Prince Edward Island, promotes scholarly inquiry into the life, works, culture, and influence of L. M. Montgomery and coordinates most of the research and conferences surrounding her work. The Montgomery Institute collection consists of novels, manuscripts, texts, letters, photographs, sound recordings and artifacts and other Montgomery ephemera.

Her major collections are archived at the University of Guelph.

The first biography of Montgomery was The Wheel of Things: A Biography of L. M. Montgomery (1975), written by Mollie Gillen. Dr. Gillen also discovered over 40 of Montgomery's letters to her pen-friend George Boyd MacMillan in Scotland and used them as the basis for her work. Beginning in the 1980s, her complete journals, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston, were published by the Oxford University Press. From 1988-95, editor Rea Wilmshurst collected and published numerous short stories by Montgomery. Most of her essays, along with interviews with Montgomery, commentary on her work, and coverage of her death and funeral, appear in Benjamin Lefebvre's The L. M. Montgomery Reader, Volume 1: A Life in Print (2013).

Despite the fact that Montgomery published over twenty books, "she never felt she achieved her one 'great' book". Her readership, however, has always found her characters and stories to be among the best in fiction. Mark Twain said Montgomery"?s Anne was "the dearest and most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice". Montgomery was honoured by being the first female in Canada to be named a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in England and by being invested in the Order of the British Empire in 1935. However, her fame was not limited to Canadian audiences. Anne of Green Gables became a success worldwide. For example, every year, thousands of Japanese tourists "make a pilgrimage to a green-gabled Victorian farmhouse in the town of Cavendish on Prince Edward Island". In 2012, the original novel Anne of Green Gables was ranked number nine among all-time best children's novels in a survey published by School Library Journal, a monthly with primarily U.S. audience. The British public ranked it number 41 among all novels in The Big Read, a 2003 BBC survey to determine the "nation's best-loved novel".

Landmarked places

Montgomery's home of Leaskdale Manse in Ontario, and the area surrounding Green Gables and her Cavendish home in Prince Edward Island, have both been designated National Historic Sites. Montgomery herself was designated a Person of National Historic Significance by the Government of Canada in 1943.

Bala's Museum in Bala, Ontario, is a house museum established in 1992. Officially it is "Bala's Museum with Memories of Lucy Maud Montgomery", for Montgomery and her family stayed in the boarding house during a July 1922 holiday that inspired her novel The Blue Castle (1926). The museum hosts some events pertaining to Montgomery or her fiction, including re-enactment of the holiday visit.

Honours and awards

Montgomery was honoured by Britain's King George V as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), as there were no Canadian orders, decorations or medals for civilians until the 1970s.

Montgomery was named a National Historic Person in 1943 by the Canadian federal government. Her Ontario residence was designated a National Historic Site (NHS) in 1997 (Leaskdale Manse NHS), while the place that inspired her famous novels, Green Gables, was designated "L. M. Montgomery's Cavendish NHS" in 2004.

On May 15, 1975, the Post Office Department issued a stamp to "Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables" designed by Peter Swan and typographed by Bernard N. J. Reilander. The 8 stamps are perforated 13 and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited.

A pair of stamps was issued in 2008 by Canada Post, marking the centennial of the publication of Montgomery's classic first novel.

The City of Toronto named a park for her (Lucy Maud Montgomery Park) and in 1983 placed a historical marker there near the house where she lived from 1935 until her death in 1942.

On November 30, 2015 (her 141st birthday), Google honoured Lucy Maud Montgomery with a Google Doodle published in twelve countries.

Works

Novels

Anne of Green Gables series

1. Anne of Green Gables (1908)
2. Anne of Avonlea (1909)
3. Anne of the Island (1915)
4. Anne of Windy Poplars (1936)
5. Anne's House of Dreams (1917)
6. Anne of Ingleside (1939)
7. Rainbow Valley (1919)
8. Rilla of Ingleside (1921)
9. The Blythes Are Quoted (2009) "? was given to publisher the day before her death and lost. Finally found in mid-2000s.

Emily trilogy

1. Emily of New Moon (1923)
2. Emily Climbs (1925)
3. Emily's Quest (1927)

Pat of Silver Bush

1. Pat of Silver Bush (1933)
2. Mistress Pat (1935)

The Story Girl

1. The Story Girl (1911)
2. The Golden Road (1913)

Miscellaneous

• Kilmeny of the Orchard (1910)
• The Blue Castle (1926)
• Magic for Marigold (1929)
• A Tangled Web (1931)
• Jane of Lantern Hill (1937)

Short story collection

• Chronicles of Avonlea (1912)
  • "The Hurrying of Ludovic"
  • "Old Lady Lloyd"
  • "Each In His Own Tongue"
  • "Little Joscelyn"
  • "The Winning of Lucinda"
  • "Old Man Shaw's Girl"
  • "Aunt Olivia's Beau"
  • "Quarantine at Alexander Abraham's"
  • "Pa Sloane's Purchase"
  • "The Courting of Prissy Strong"
  • "The Miracle at Carmody"
  • "The End of a Quarrel"
• Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920)
  • "Aunt Cynthia's Persian Cat"
  • "The Materializing of Cecil"
  • "Her Father's Daughter"
  • "Jane's Baby"
  • "The Dream-Child"
  • "The Brother Who Failed"
  • "The Return of Hester"
  • "The Little Brown Book of Miss Emily"
  • "Sara's Way"
  • "The Son of his Mother"
  • "The Education of Betty"
  • "In Her Selfless Mood"
  • "The Conscience Case of David Bell"
  • "Only a Common Fellow"
  • "Tannis of the Flats"
• The Road to Yesterday (1974)
  • "An Afternoon With Mr. Jenkins"
  • "Retribution"
  • "The Twins Pretend"
  • "Fancy's Fool"
  • "A Dream Come True"
  • "Penelope Struts Her Theories"
  • "The Reconciliation"
  • "The Cheated Child"
  • "Fool's Errand"
  • "The Pot and the Kettle"
  • "Here Comes the Bride"
  • "Brother Beware"
  • "The Road to Yesterday"
  • "A Commonplace Woman"
• The Doctor's Sweetheart and Other Stories, selected by Catherine McLay (1979)
• Akin to Anne: Tales of Other Orphans, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1988)
• Along the Shore: Tales by the Sea, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1989)
• Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1990)
• After Many Days: Tales of Time Passed, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1991)
• Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1993)
• At the Altar: Matrimonial Tales, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1994)
• Across the Miles: Tales of Correspondence, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1995)
• Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories, edited by Rea Wilmshurst (1995)
• The Blythes Are Quoted, edited by Benjamin Lefebvre (2009) (companion book to Rilla of Ingleside)

Short stories by chronological order

• Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories: 1896 to 1901 (2008)
  • "A Case of Trespass" (1897)
  • "A Christmas Inspiration" (1901)
  • "A Christmas Mistake" (1899)
  • "A Strayed Allegiance" (1897)
  • "An Invitation Given on Impulse" (1900)
  • "Detected by the Camera" (1897)
  • "In Spite of Myself" (1896)
  • "Kismet" (1899)
  • "Lillian's Business Venture" (1900)
  • "Miriam's Lover" (1901)
  • "Miss Calista's Peppermint Bottle" (1900)
  • "The Jest that Failed" (1901)
  • "The Pennington's Girl" (1900)
  • "The Red Room" (1898)
  • "The Setness of Theodosia" (1901)
  • "The Story of An Invitation" (1901)
  • "The Touch of Fate" (1899)
  • "The Waking of Helen" (1901)
  • "The Way of Winning Anne" (1899)
  • "Young Si" (1901)
• Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories: 1902 to 1903 (2008)
  • "A Patent Medicine Testimonial" (1903)
  • "A Sandshore Wooing" (1903)
  • "After Many Days" (1903)
  • "An Unconventional Confidence" (1903)
  • "Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket" (1903)
  • "Davenport's Story" (1902)
  • "Emily's Husband" (1903)
  • "Min" (1903)
  • "Miss Cordelia's Accommodation" (1903)
  • "Ned's Stroke of Business" (1903)
  • "Our Runaway Kite" (1903)
  • "The Bride Roses" (1903)
  • "The Josephs' Christmas" (1902)
  • "The Magical Bond of the Sea" (1903)
  • "The Martyrdom of Estella" (1902)
  • "The Old Chest at Wyther Grange" (1903)
  • "The Osborne's Christmas" (1903)
  • "The Romance of Aunt Beatrice" (1902)
  • "The Running Away of Chester" (1903)
  • "The Strike at Putney" (1903)
  • "The Unhappiness of Miss Farquhar" (1903)
  • "Why Mr. Cropper Changed His Mind" (1903)
• Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories: 1904 (2008)
  • "A Fortunate Mistake" (1904)
  • "An Unpremeditated Ceremony" (1904)
  • "At the Bay Shore Farm" (1904)
  • "Elizabeth's Child" (1904)
  • "Freda's Adopted Grave" (1904)
  • "How Don Was Saved" (1904)
  • "Miss Madeline's Proposal" (1904)
  • "Miss Sally's Company" (1904)
  • "Mrs. March's Revenge" (1904)
  • "Nan" (1904)
  • "Natty of Blue Point" (1904)
  • "Penelope's Party Waist" (1904)
  • "The Girl and The Wild Race" (1904)
  • "The Promise of Lucy Ellen" (1904)
  • "The Pursuit of the Ideal" (1904)
  • "The Softening of Miss Cynthia" (1904)
  • "Them Notorious Pigs" (1904)
  • "Why Not Ask Miss Price?" (1904)
• Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories: 1905 to 1906 (2008)
  • "A Correspondence and a Climax" (1905)
  • "An Adventure on Island Rock" (1906)
  • "At Five O'Clock in the Morning" (1905)
  • "Aunt Susanna's Birthday Celebration" (1905)
  • "Bertie's New Year" (1905)
  • "Between the Hill and the Valley" (1905)
  • "Clorinda's Gifts" (1906)
  • "Cyrilla's Inspiration" (1905)
  • "Dorinda's Desperate Deed" (1906)
  • "Her Own People" (1905)
• [1905 to 1906, continued]
  • "Ida's New Year Cake" (1905)
  • "In the Old Valley" (1906)
  • "Jane Lavinia" (1906)
  • "Mackereling Out in the Gulf" (1905)
  • "Millicent's Double " (1905)
  • "The Blue North Room" (1906)
  • "The Christmas Surprise At Enderly Road" (1905)
  • "The Dissipation of Miss Ponsonby" (1906)
  • "The Falsoms' Christmas Dinner" (1906)
  • "The Fraser Scholarship" (1905)
  • "The Girl at the Gate" (1906)
  • "The Light on the Big Dipper" (1906)
  • "The Prodigal Brother" (1906)
  • "The Redemption of John Churchill" (1906)
  • "The Schoolmaster's Letter" (1905)
  • "The Story of Uncle Dick" (1906)
  • "The Understanding of Sister Sara" (1905)
  • "The Unforgotten One" (1906)
  • "The Wooing of Bessy" (1906)
  • "Their Girl Josie " (1906)
  • "When Jack and Jill Took a Hand" (1905)
• Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories: 1907 to 1908 (2008)
  • "A Millionaire's Proposal" (1907)
  • "A Substitute Journalist" (1907)
  • "Anna's Love Letters" (1908)
  • "Aunt Caroline's Silk Dress" (1907)
  • "Aunt Susanna's Thanksgiving Dinner" (1907)
  • "By Grace of Julius Caesar" (1908)
  • "By the Rule of Contrary" (1908)
  • "Fair Exchange and No Robbery " (1907)
  • "Four Winds" (1908)
  • "Marcella's Reward" (1907)
  • "Margaret's Patient" (1908)
  • "Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves" (1908)
  • "Missy's Room" (1907)
  • "Ted's Afternoon Off" (1907)
  • "The Girl Who Drove the Cows" (1908)
  • "The Doctor's Sweetheart" (1908)
  • "The End of the Young Family Feud" (1907)
  • "The Genesis of the Doughnut Club" (1907)
  • "The Growing Up of Cornelia" (1908)
  • "The Old Fellow's Letter " (1907)
  • "The Parting of the Ways" (1907)
  • "The Promissory Note" (1907)
  • "The Revolt of Mary Isabel" (1908)
  • "The Twins and a Wedding" (1908)
• Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories: 1909 to 1922 (2008)
  • "A Golden Wedding" (1909)
  • "A Redeeming Sacrifice" (1909)
  • "A Soul that Was Not At Home" (1915)
  • "Abel And His Great Adventure" (1917)
  • "Akin to Love" (1909)
  • "Aunt Philippa and the Men" (1915)
  • "Bessie's Doll" (1914)
  • "Charlotte's Ladies" (1911)
  • "Christmas at Red Butte " (1909)
  • "How We Went to the Wedding" (1913)
  • "Jessamine" (1909)
  • "Miss Sally's Letter" (1910)
  • "My Lady Jane" (1915)
  • "Robert Turner's Revenge" (1909)
  • "The Fillmore Elderberries" 1909)
  • "The Finished Story" (1912)
  • "The Garden of Spices" (1918)
  • "The Girl and the Photograph" (1915)
  • "The Gossip of Valley View" (1910)
  • "The Letters" (1910)
  • "The Life-Book of Uncle Jesse" (1909)
  • "The Little Black Doll" (1909)
  • "The Man on the Train" (1914)
  • "The Romance of Jedediah" (1912)
  • "The Tryst of the White Lady" (1922)
  • "Uncle Richard's New Year Dinner" (1910)
  • "White Magic" (1921)

Poetry

• The Watchman & Other Poems (1916)
• The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery, selected by John Ferns and Kevin McCabe (1987)

Non-fiction

• Courageous Women (1934) (with Marian Keith and Mabel Burns McKinley)

Autobiography

• The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career (1974; originally published in Everywoman's World in 1917)
• The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery (5 vols.), edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston (1985-2004)
• The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years 1889-1911 (2 vols.), edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston (2012-2014)

Notes and references