Lucy Maud Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery, (always called "Maud" by family and friends) and publicly known as L. M. Montgomery, (November 30, 1874–April 24, 1942) was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables.

Biography

Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island on November 30th 1874. Her mother, Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery, died when she was 21 months old. Her father, Hugh John Montgomery, left the province after his wife’s death and eventually settled in the western territories of Canada. 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. In 1890, Montgomery was sent to live in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan with her father and stepmother, however after one year she returned to Prince Edward Island and the home of her grandparents.

Birth place of Lucy Maud Montgomery

In 1893, following the completion of her grade school education in Cavendish, she attended Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown. Completing a two year program in one year, she obtained her teaching certificate. In 1895 and 1896 she studied literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

After working as a teacher in various island schools, in 1898 Montgomery moved back to Cavendish to live with her widowed grandmother. For a short time in 1901 and 1902 she worked in Halifax for the newspapers Chronicle and Echo. She returned to live with and care for her grandmother in 1902. Montgomery was inspired to write her first books during this time on Prince Edward Island. In 1908, she published her first book, Anne of Green Gables. Three years later, shortly after her grandmother's death, she married Ewan Macdonald (1870 - 1943), a Presbyterian Minister, and 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.

The couple had three sons: Chester Cameron Macdonald (1912-1964), (Ewan) Stuart Macdonald (1915-1982) and Hugh Alexander, who died at birth in 1914.

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

Montgomery died in Toronto in 1942, and was buried at the Cavendish Community Cemetery in Cavendish.

Her major collections are archived at the University of Guelph, while the Lucy Maud Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince Edward Island coordinates most of the research and conferences surrounding her work. Beginning in the 1980s her complete journals, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston, were published by the Oxford University Press.

Montgomery was born on the same day as British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill.

Novels

• 1908 - Anne of Green Gables
• 1909 - Anne of Avonlea
• 1910 - Kilmeny of the Orchard
• 1911 - The Story Girl
• 1913 - The Golden Road (sequel to The Story Girl)
• 1915 - Anne of the Island
• 1917 - Anne's House of Dreams
• 1919 - Rainbow Valley
• 1920 - Rilla of Ingleside
• 1923 - Emily of New Moon
• 1925 - Emily Climbs
• 1926 - The Blue Castle
• 1927 - Emily's Quest
• 1929 - Magic for Marigold
• 1931 - A Tangled Web
• 1933 - Pat of Silver Bush
• 1935 - Mistress Pat (sequel to Pat of Silver Bush)
• 1936 - Anne of Windy Poplars
• 1937 - Jane of Lantern Hill
• 1939 - Anne of Ingleside

Short story collections

• 1912 - Chronicles of Avonlea
• 1920 - Further Chronicles of Avonlea
• 1974 - The Road to Yesterday
• 1979 - The Doctor's Sweetheart
• 1988 - Akin to Anne: Tales of Other Orphans
• 1989 - Along the Shore: Tales by the Sea
• 1990 - Among the Shadows: Tales from the Darker Side
• 1991 - After Many Days: Tales of Time Passed
• 1993 - Against the Odds: Tales of Achievement
• 1994 - At the Altar: Matrimonial Tales
• 1995 - Across the Miles: Tales of Correspondence
• 1995 - Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories

Poetry

• 1916 - The Watchman & Other Poems
• 1987 - The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery

Non-fiction

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

Autobiography

• 1917 - The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career