Lucy Maud (L.M.) Montgomery was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Canada on November 30, 1874. During her lifetime, she
wrote 22 novels and short story collections, a volume of
poetry,
a book on
courageous women (with Marian Keith and M.B. McKinley), an autobiography, a life's worth of journals
(of 5,000 pages), 450
poems,
and over 500
short
stories. Of these literary contributions, she is best known for
giving Canadians (and the world) a beloved literary heroine named
Anne of Green Gables, an imaginative, short-tempered, loving, red-headed
orphan in search of a home.
L.M. Montgomery's mother died
in her early youth when she was just 21 months old, and her father left her in the care of her stern maternal grandparents. Montgomery's
refuge from loneliness was in her imagination, much like many of the heroines she
would later create. She was a storyteller from her early youth.
In her autobiography,
The Alpine Path, Montgomery writes:
"I cannot remember the time when
I was not writing, or when I did not mean to be an author. To write
has always been my central purpose around which every effort and hope
and ambition of my life has grouped itself."
In 1889, L.M. Montgomery lived for a short time with her father in Alberta, Canada.
During her stay there, Montgomery published her first poem in a local
newspaper at the age of 15. Montgomery soon returned to Prince Edward Island
to finish her schooling. After completing college, she worked briefly as a journalist,
and then she began to teach. In spite of having a tumultuous
love life during this period, Montgomery's writing never quelled.
She published many short stories and poems during this time.
After her grandfather's death in 1898, L.M. Montgomery returned home to live with her grandmother. In 1902,
she began a lifelong correspondence with Ephraim Weber, a man with literary
ambitions. In 1903, she began writing to a second pen-pal, George Boyd
Macmillan of Scotland.
In 1906, L.M. Montgomery became engaged to
Ewen MacDonald, who was studying to be a minister. Montgomery was unable to leave
her grandmother, so their engagement was extended until her grandmother's death in 1911. During
this period, Montgomery began work on
Anne of Green
Gables, which was published in 1908 to popular acclaim. A sequel
was demanded immediately, and Montgomery wrote
Anne of Avonlea.
In 1909, L.M. Montgomery began work on what she considered
her favorite book,
The Story Girl. It
was published in 1911. That same year, Montgomery and MacDonald finally married. The couple
honeymooned in England and Scotland, and when they returned to Canada, it
was not to P.E.I., but to Leaskdale, Ontario. Ewen had accepted a
position there as a minister. Although Montgomery now had new responsibilities as a minister's
wife, she was determined to continue her
writing.
L.M. Montgomery was strained by World War I and an increasingly bad relationship with her first publisher, which resulted
in a lengthy legal battle. Both she and her husband faced depression. In
spite of all this, Montgomery continued her daily writing, producing further
stories on
Anne
as well as many others, including
the
Emily and
Pat series
and
The Blue Castle. By the late
1930s, Montgomery's personal troubles, illness, and depression overwhelmed her.
Even her journal writing failed to console her, and the advent of World
War II was a further blow to her depressed spirits. She died
on April 24, 1942, after months of not writing to her pen-friends
or in her journals. L.M. Montgomery was buried in Cavendish, P.E.I.
During her lifetime, L.M. Montgomery
received a number of international awards for her writing. She was honored as
a Fellow of the British Royal Society of Arts (1923), a Companion of the
Order of the British Empire, and a member of the Literary and Artistic
Institute of France (1935). Today, Montgomery's
legacy lives on in the expanding critical re-evaluations of
her works, in the translations of her books to scores of languages,
in the adaptations of her stories for
film,
television, and
stage, and in the sustained appeal of her stories
worldwide.
References for Biography:
Montgomery, L.M.
The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career. Markham: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1997.
Parry, Caroline. "L. M. Montgomery: A Biography." in
Anne
of the Island. Montgomery, L. M. New York: Bantam Books, 1998.
Waterston, Elizabeth. "Lucy Maud Montgomery: 1874–1942."
L.
M. Montgomery: An Assessment. Ed. John Robert Sorfleet. Guelph: Canadian
Children's Press, 1976. 9–28.
Image Credit:
Photograph of L.M. Montgomery from the cover of her autobiography
The Alpine Path republished by Fitzhenry & Whiteside in 1997.
Created July 16, 1999. Last
updated April 18, 2024.
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