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L.M. Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island, on November 30, 1874, to Hugh John Montgomery and Clara Woolner Macneill. When Maud Montgomery was 21 months old, her mother died of tuberculosis. Her father left her in the care of her mother’s parents, Alexander and Lucy Woolner Macneill of Cavendish, and moved to western Canada, where he eventually settled in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and remarried.
As an only child living with an elderly couple, Montgomery found companionship in her imagination, nature, books, and especially writing. When she was nine, she began writing poetry and keeping a journal. She also spent time with her Uncle John and Aunt Annie Campbell (her mother’s sister), and their family in Park Corner. There she spent many happy days, playing with her cousins and visiting her paternal grandfather, Senator Donald Montgomery, who lived close to the Campbells. She loved her Cavendish home and Silver Bush (as the Campbell farm was called) in Park Corner.
At the age of six, she began attending the one-room school near her grandparents’ home in Cavendish. She completed her early education there, with the exception of one year (1890-1891) which she spent in Prince Albert with her father and his wife, Mary McRae. While in Prince Albert, she achieved her first publication – a poem entitled “On Cape LeForce” published by a Prince Edward Island newspaper, The Patriot. In September of 1891, she returned to Cavendish, too late to go to school that year, but she completed grade ten in 1892-1893. The following year (1893-1894), she studied for a teacher’s license at Prince of Wales College, completing the two-year course in one year and graduating with honours.
During her brief teaching career, Montgomery taught at three Island schools: Bideford, Belmont, and Lower Bedeque respectively. She left teaching for one year (1895-1896) to study selected courses in English literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, becoming one of the few women of her time to seek higher education. It was during her stay at Dalhousie that she received the first payments for her writing.
In 1898, while Montgomery was teaching in Lower Bedeque, her grandfather Macneill died suddenly. She returned to Cavendish immediately to take care of her grandmother who otherwise would have had to leave her home. She remained with her grandmother for the next thirteen years, with the exception of a nine-month period in 1901-1902 when she worked as a proof reader for The Daily Echo in Halifax. During her years in Cavendish, Montgomery continued to write and sent off numerous poems, stories, and serials to Canadian, British, and American magazines. Despite many rejections, she eventually commanded a comfortable income from her writing. In 1899, she earned $96.88 – certainly not much by today’s standards but a nice sum at the turn of the century. Her earnings from her writing increased to $500 in 1903.
In 1905, she wrote her first and most famous novel, Anne of Green Gables. She sent the manuscript to several publishers, but, after receiving rejections from all of them, she put it away in a hat box. In 1907, she found the manuscript again, re-read it, and decided to try again to have it published. Anne of Green Gables was accepted by the Page Company of Boston, Massachusetts and published in 1908. An immediate best-seller, the book marked the beginning of Montgomery’s successful career as a novelist.
After Grandmother Macneill died in March of 1911, Montgomery married the Reverend Ewan Macdonald, to whom she had been secretly engaged since 1906, on July 5, 1911. Prior to her engagement to Macdonald, she had had two romantic involvements: an unhappy engagement to her third cousin Edwin Simpson, of Belmont, and a brief but passionate romantic attachment to Herman Leard, of Lower Bedeque. After their marriage, Montgomery and Macdonald moved to Leaskdale, Ontario, where Macdonald was minister in the Presbyterian church. She bore three sons: Chester (1912), Hugh (stillborn in 1914), and Stuart (1915); assisted her husband in his pastoral duties; ran their home; and continued to write best-selling novels as well as short stories and poems. She faithfully recorded entries in her journals and kept up an enormous correspondence with friends, family, and fans. Maud Montgomery Macdonald did not live on Prince Edward Island again, returning only for vacations.
Montgomery was a very sensitive and intelligent woman who suffered deeply from events that affected her personally and the world in general. In her journals, she expressed her pain at the death of her infant son Hugh, the horrors of the First World War, the death of her beloved cousin Frede Campbell, and the discovery that her husband suffered from religious melancholia. But despite these and other problems, she continued to write, expressing her love of life, nature, and beauty in her fiction, journals, and letters. In 1926, the Montgomery Macdonalds moved to Norval, Ontario, where they stayed until Macdonald resigned from the ministry in 1935. They then moved to Toronto, where they could be close to their sons.
Maud Montgomery Macdonald died in Toronto, Ontario, on April 24, 1942; Ewan Macdonald died in November 1943. In death, Montgomery returned to her beloved Prince Edward Island, where she was buried in the Cavendish cemetery, close to the site of her old home.
L.M. Montgomery never lived on Prince Edward Island again after her marriage in 1911. Yet, she immortalized this tiny province through her wonderful descriptions of life, nature, community, and people on Prince Edward Island. All but one of her 20 books are set on Prince Edward Island. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people, directly or indirectly influenced by the way of life she depicted in her writing, come to Prince Edward Island to see the place she loved so much.
Chronology
1874 | Born Nov. 30, Clifton, Prince Edward Island |
1876 | Mother, Clara Macneill Montgomery dies of tuberculosis |
1883 | Wreck of the ship the Marco Polo in Cavendish |
1890-91 | Trip to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to visit LMM’s father and new wife |
1893-94 | Attends Prince of Wales College and earns First Class Teacher’s licence |
1894-95 | Teaches school in Bideford, PEI |
1895-96 | Attends Dalhousie University in Halifax |
1896-97 | Teaches in Belmont, PEI and becomes engaged to Edwin Simpson, a cousin |
1897-98 | Teaches in Lower Bedeque, PEI; falls in love with Herman Leard; breaks engagement to Simpson; Returns to Cavendish to live with Grandmother Macneill when Grandfather dies |
1901-02 | Works as newspaperwoman on Daily Echo in Halifax |
1902 | Begins a life-long correspondence with Ephraim Weber; becomes close friends with cousin Frede Campbell and with Cavendish teacher Nora Lefurgey |
1903 | Ewan Macdonald becomes Presbyterian minister in Cavendish; begins life-long correspondence with George Boyd MacMillan |
1906 | Secretly engaged to Ewan Macdonald, who leaves to study in Scotland where he meets MacMillan |
1908 | Publication of the best selling Anne of Green Gables |
1909 | Anne of Avonlea |
1910 | Kilmeny of the Orchard; Macdonald accepts parish in Leaskdale, Ontario; LMM meets Earl and Lady Grey in September; in November travels to Boston to meet her publisher, L.C. Page |
1911 | The Story Girl; Grandmother Macneill dies; marries Ewan Macdonald at Park Corner on 5 July; honeymoons in Scotland and England for three months; home to Leaskdale, Ontario |
1912 | Chronicles of Avonlea; Chester Cameron born July 7th |
1913 | The Golden Road; trip to PEI |
1914 | First World War is declared; Hugh Alexander dies at birth on 13th August |
1915 | Anne of the Island; Ewan Stuart born October 7th |
1916 | The Watchman and Other Poems |
1917 | Anne’s House of Dreams; polls her first vote |
1918 | First World War ends; LMM suffers Spanish flu; goes to PEI to help nurse sick at Park Corner |
1919 | Frede Campbell Macfarlane dies of Spanish flu in Montreal; Ewan suffers a nervous breakdown; Rainbow Valley; LMM sells rights for Anne of Green Gables to Page who sells movie rights immediately |
1920 | Further Chronicles of Avonlea published illegally LMM begins eight-year lawsuit with Page Co.; Rilla of Ingleside |
1922 | Car accident in Zephyr and Ewan is sued and refuses to pay; trip to Muskoka |
1923 | Emily of New Moon; LMM first Canadian woman to become Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in Britain |
1925 | Emily Climbs; Church Union vote in Canada |
1926 | The Blue Castle; move to Norval, Ontario |
1927 | Emily’s Quest; presented to the Prince of Wales |
1928 | Nora Lefurgey Campbell reappears in LMM’s life and lives in a Toronto flat |
1929 | Magic for Marigold; stock market crash affects LMM’s finances |
1930 | Goes to Prince Albert to rekindle 1890’s friendships |
1931 | A Tangled Web |
1933 | Pat of Silver Bush |
1934 | Chester and Luella’s baby Luella is born; Courageous Women |
1935 | Mistress Pat; LMM elected to Literary and Artistic Institute of France; moves to 210 Riverside Drive, Toronto(“Journey’s End”); Officer of the Order of the British Empire |
1936 | Anne of Windy Poplars; Cavendish chosen as site for National Park on Prince Edward Island |
1937 | Green Gables site opens in Cavendish; Jane of Lantern Hill |
1939 | Anne of Ingleside; last visit to PEI |
1942 | Dies on 24 April; lies in state at Green Gables and is buried in Cavendish Cemetery (where Ewan Macdonald joins her one year later) |
Works
Novels:
1908 Anne of Green Gables
1909 Anne of Avonlea
1910 Kilmeny of the Orchard
1911 The Story Girl
1913 The Golden Road
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
1936 Anne of Windy Poplars
1937 Jane of Lantern Hill
1939 Anne of Ingleside
Poetry:
1916 The Watchman and Other Poems
1987 The Poetry of Lucy Maud Montgomery
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
Journals:
1985 The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume I: 1889-1910
1987 The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume II: 1910-1921
1992 The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume III:1921-1929
1998 The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume IV:1929-1935
Soon The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume V:1935-1942
Letters:
1960 The Green Gables Letters: from L.M. Montgomery Ephraim Weber, 1905-1909
1990 My Dear Mr. M: Letters to G.B. MacMillan from L.M. Montgomery
2006 After Green Gables: L.M. Montgomerys Letters to Ephraim Weber, 1916-1941
Essays:
1934 Courageous Women
Lyrics:
1907 The Island Hymn
Autobiography:
1917 The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career
For a more detailed listing of Montgomery’s short stories and poems, see Ruth Weber Russell, D.W. Russell, and Rea Wilmhurst’s 1986 bibliography, Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Preliminary Bibliography (Waterloo: University of Waterloo Library).