L. M. Montgomery
L. M. Montgomery: Her Life
L.M. Montgomery (Lucy Maud Montgomery) was born in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island, on November 30, 1874, to Hugh John Montgomery and Clara Woolner Macneill. When 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 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.
Dr. Kate Scarth, Chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies and Associate Professor of Applied Communication, Leadership, and Culture at UPEI, answers the question "Who is L.M. Montgomery?"
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 Anne 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 - 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 had 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 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.
Montgomery 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.
L. M. Montgomery: Timeline
1874
Born November 30, in Clifton, Prince Edward Island
1876
Montgomery’s mother, Clara Macneill Montgomery dies of tuberculosis
1883
Wreck of the ship the Marco Polo in Cavendish, Montgomery would eventually write about this.
1890-91
Trip to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to stay with her father and new wife, attends High School
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 the Daily Echo in Halifax
1902
Begins a lifelong 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.
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; Montgomery 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 August 13th
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; Montgomery goes to PEI to help nurse the sick at Park Corner
1919
Frede Campbell Macfarlane dies of Spanish flu in Montreal; Ewan suffers a nervous breakdown; Rainbow Valley; Montgomery sells rights for Anne of Green Gables to Page who sells movie rights immediately
1920
Further Chronicles of Avonlea published illegally; Montgomery begins eight-year lawsuit with Page Co.; Rilla of Ingleside
1922
Car accident in Zephyr where Ewan is sued and refuses to pay; trip to Muskoka
1923
Emily of New Moon; Montgomery 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; moves to Norval, Ontario
1927
Emily's Quest; presented to the Prince of Wales
1928
Nora Lefurgey Campbell reappears in Montgomery life and lives in a Toronto flat
1929
Magic for Marigold; stock market crash affects Montgomery 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; Montgomery 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)
L. M. Montgomery: Popular Questions
L.M. Montgomery wrote twenty novels in her lifetime, as well as hundreds of short stories and poems. A complete list of Montgomery's published works is available here.
Anne of Green Gables was first published in 1908.
Yes, she did. In 1923, Montgomery became the first Canadian woman to be made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts. In 1935, Montgomery was made a Companion of the Order of the British Empire by King George V and was elected to the Literary and Artistic Institute of France.
After Montgomery’s death in 1942, the National Sites and Historic Board of Canada declared Montgomery a person of national historic significance. In 1999, Montgomery was voted one of the top 20 Canadian heroes in a Dominion Institute and the Council for Canadian Unity internet survey. In the same year, CBC held a millennium poll and Montgomery was voted the most influential Canadian writer of the twentieth century. In 2000, L.M. Montgomery was chosen by Maclean's magazine as one of twenty-five Canadians who inspired the world.
The answer to this question is complex and related to the copyright terms in the country in which a specific work was published. Questions relating to the republication of Montgomery's works should be directed to the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery as should questions relating to the use of Montgomery's name and image.
Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc.
29 Commercial Road, Suite 205
Toronto, Ontario M4G lZ3
aggla@bellnet.ca
The value of Montgomery books and ephemera depends on either the item's cultural significance and/or its condition and age. For example, if a book has Montgomery's signature or inscription, then it has cultural significance. If the book is culturally significant, then the condition or age of the book is irrelevant, though it can definitely add to its value. If there is no cultural significance then value is determined solely on the condition and age of the book. The L.M. Montgomery Literary Society of Minnesota shares some helpful information about collecting Montgomery's works here.
Staff of the L.M. Montgomery Institute cannot authenticate Montgomery's handwriting or signature and cannot appraise books or ephemera, though we are happy to offer an opinion. We recommend that you have items professionally appraised by a reputable book dealer (member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of Canada and/or the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers). If you are unsure about reputable dealers in your area, please contact the Institute and we may be able to recommend someone to you. As an independent institute within UPEI, the LMMI welcomes gifts and donations. Tax receipts are issued by UPEI's Advancement Services. If you would like to make a donation, please contact the University Archivist, Simon Llloyd at slloyd@upei.ca.