L.M. Montgomery Institute launches new initiative

The L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf Project highlights L.M. Montgomery’s love of books and reading.

The L.M. Montgomery Institute and the Robertson Library at UPEI launched a new initiative, “The L.M. Montgomery Bookshelf: Highlighting a Favourite Writer’s Favourite Reading,” on November 30, the birth date of Prince Edward Island’s most famous author, L.M. Montgomery.

Scholars and fans have long been interested in the author’s reading habits and her zeal for collecting and sharing reading material of all kinds. Born on November 30, 1874, Montgomery was a voracious reader and writer from a young age. In her lifetime, she wrote 20 books, numerous short stories and poems, and voluminous journals. Her first and most famous novel, Anne of Green Gables, was written in 1905 and published in 1908. She read widely and constantly from a variety of genres.

Funded by a generous donation from Montgomery scholar and collector Dr. Donna Campbell, the project will take a digital and a physical form of a bookshelf.

“We know L.M. Montgomery as an author, and now, thanks to Dr. Campbell’s generosity, we have the opportunity to learn about the writer as a reader and lover of books,” said Dr. Philip Smith, chair of the L.M. Montgomery Institute. “On behalf of the LMMI, I thank Dr. Campbell for her support of this project in particular and of L.M. Montgomery scholarship in general.”

Dr. Emily Woster, past Montgomery visiting scholar and co-chair of the LMMI’s 2018 conference, “L.M. Montgomery and Reading,” is curating and annotating the selection of books that will populate the digital bookshelf, which can be accessed at https://kindredspaces.ca/bookshelf. The project will begin with a small sample of entries, which include, among others, Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; Della Lute’s The Country Kitchen, a novel with recipes published in 1936; and a book about the Boston Museum of Fine Arts that Montgomery purchased on her trip to visit her publisher, L.C. Page, in 1910.

The project will highlight books that bear Montgomery’s handwriting or other indications of her use or ownership, such as her signature or a personal note to someone she gifted with a book. Robertson Library and the LMMI currently own about 10 such books, donated by the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery, Campbell, and Mary Beth Cavert, also a well-known Montgomery scholar. An example is Fires of Driftwood, by Isabel Ecclestone Mackay, which Montgomery inscribed to her cousin Beatrice A. “Bertie” McIntyre.

It will also focus on early editions of books similar to those read and owned by Montgomery, such as Isabella Macdonald Alden’s Pansy books, which are known to have influenced the author. The Library and the LMMI own about 10 such books, donated by the Heirs of L.M. Montgomery, Campbell, and Dr. Elizabeth Epperly, a world-renowned scholar and founder of the LMMI.

The LMMI plans to acquire more books associated with Montgomery that will be added to the physical version of the project. And new content will be added to the digital bookshelf in June and November each year. Authors who may be added in future include great literary figures—and Montgomery favourites—such as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Alfred Tennyson, Jane Austen, and the Bronte sisters, and the famous mystery writer Agatha Christie.