Menu Close

Tag: Anne of Green Gables

Next on Readathon: Anne of Green Gables!

Cover of Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, a book with a green cloth cover that features the title and the author's name in gold letters below a framed painting showing the profile and shoulders of a red-headed Caucasian woman, facing left.

Today on the L.M. Montgomery Readathon, a Facebook group that Andrea McKenzie and I have curated since the beginning of the pandemic, we start our discussion of our seventh book, Anne of Green Gables—and you’re invited to join us!

Between now and early November, we’ll be reading this favourite book together chapter by chapter. In addition to members taking turns reading each chapter in turn, we’ll post discussion questions, favourite book covers, details about Montgomery’s life and times (including education, fashion, and technology), allusions to previous works of literature, and information about the book’s publishing history. While we may bring up adaptations and supplementary texts (including more than two dozen abridged editions for young children) on occasion, the bulk of the focus will be on L.M. Montgomery’s novel. But all readers are welcomed to join us, whether you are reading the book for the first time or for the hundredth time.

The full schedule is below. I look forward to discussing this book with you!

L.M. Montgomery Readathon

Reading Schedule for Anne of Green Gables

Monday, 4 July 2022: Chapter I. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Surprised

Thursday, 7 July 2022: Chapter II. Matthew Cuthbert Is Surprised

Monday, 11 July 2022: Chapter III. Marilla Cuthbert Is Surprised

Thursday, 14 July 2022: Chapter IV. Morning at Green Gables

Monday, 18 July 2022: Chapter V. Anne’s History

Thursday, 21 July 2022: Chapter VI. Marilla Makes Up Her Mind

Monday, 25 July 2022: Chapter VII. Anne Says Her Prayers

Thursday, 28 July 2022: Chapter VIII. Anne’s Bringing-Up Is Begun

Monday, 1 August 2022: Chapter IX. Mrs. Rachel Lynde Is Properly Horrified

Thursday, 4 August 2022: Chapter X. Anne’s Apology

Monday, 8 August 2022: Chapter XI. Anne’s Impressions of Sunday-School

Thursday, 11 August 2022: Chapter XII. A Solemn Vow and Promise

Monday, 15 August 2022: Chapter XIII. The Delights of Anticipation

Thursday, 18 August 2022: Chapter XIV. Anne’s Confession

Monday, 22 August 2022: Chapter XV. A Tempest in the School Teapot

Thursday, 25 August 2022: Chapter XVI. Diana Is Invited to Tea with Tragic Results

Monday, 29 August 2022: Chapter XVII. A New Interest in Life

Thursday, 1 September 2022: Chapter XVIII. Anne to the Rescue

Monday, 5 September 2022: Chapter XIX. A Concert, a Catastrophe, and a Confession

Thursday, 8 September 2022: Chapter XX. A Good Imagination Gone Wrong

Monday, 12 September 2022: Chapter XXI. A New Departure in Flavourings

Thursday, 15 September 2022: Chapter XXII. Anne Is Invited Out to Tea

Monday, 19 September 2022: Chapter XXIII. Anne Comes to Grief in an Affair of Honour

Thursday, 22 September 2022: Chapter XXIV. Miss Stacy and Her Pupils Get Up a Concert

Monday, 26 September 2022: Chapter XXV. Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves

Thursday, 29 September 2022: Chapter XXVI. The Story Club Is Formed

Monday, 3 October 2022: Chapter XXVII. Vanity and Vexation of Spirit

Thursday, 6 October 2022: Chapter XXVIII. An Unfortunate Lily Maid

Monday, 10 October 2022: Chapter XXIX. An Epoch in Anne’s Life

Thursday, 13 October 2022: Chapter XXX. The Queen’s Class Is Organized

Monday, 17 October 2022: Chapter XXXI. Where the Brook and River Meet

Thursday, 20 October 2022: Chapter XXXII. The Pass List Is Out

Monday, 24 October 2022: Chapter XXXIII. The Hotel Concert

Thursday, 27 October 2022: Chapter XXXIV. A Queen’s Girl

Monday, 31 October 2022: Chapter XXXV. The Winter at Queen’s

Thursday, 3 November 2022: Chapter XXXVI. The Glory and the Dream

Monday, 7 November 2022: Chapter XXXVII. The Reaper Whose Name Is Death

Thursday, 10 November 2022: Chapter XXXVIII. The Bend in the Road

Anne’s Birthday Month

“I was just on my way over to invite you to help me celebrate my birthday on Saturday,” said Anne.

“Your birthday? But your birthday was in March!”

“That wasn’t my fault,” laughed Anne. “If my parents had consulted me it would never have happened then. I should have chosen to be born in spring, of course. It must be delightful to come into the world with the mayflowers and violets. You would always feel that you were their foster sister. But since I didn’t, the next best thing is to celebrate my birthday in the spring.”

Anne of Avonlea, chapter 13: “A Golden Picnic”

Although Anne Shirley never specifies when in March her birthday is held, the fact that today, March 8, is International Women’s Day seems to be a good occasion to begin the celebration of Anne’s birthday month. Accordingly, between now and the end of March I’ll share a selection of Anne book covers from multiple countries and across time through L.M. Montgomery Online’s social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. If you don’t follow this website on one of these platforms, please do so! At the end of the month, I’ll post all the covers again on this website and invite people to vote on their favourites.

We’ll start with the book cover that accompanied Anne’s first appearance in the book industry—that of the first edition of Anne of Green Gables, published by L.C. Page and Company in 1908.

Cover of Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, a book with a green cloth cover that features the title and the author's name in gold letters below a framed painting showing the profile and shoulders of a red-headed Caucasian woman, facing left.

Happy October from L.M. Montgomery!

Today is the first of October, which means that today is the day several memes start going around quoting chapter 16 of Anne of Green Gables, in which Anne says to Marilla, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

Although that’s probably one of the most frequently quoted sentences from Montgomery’s work, it is not the only time she wrote about the wonders of October. (One extract that comes to mind is from The Blue Castle, but I don’t want to quote it here out of respect for members of the L.M. Montgomery Readathon who are reading the book for the first time.) Instead, this morning I decided to share with you an excerpt from “Around the Table,” the newspaper column that Montgomery wrote for the Halifax Daily Echo over a nine-month period between September 1901 and May 1902. This column is narrated and signed by “Cynthia,” a single woman of indeterminate age who shares a Halifax boarding house with Polly, Ted, and Theodosia. In the instalment published on 26 October 1901, Cynthia writes about the complexities of waking up early to catch a beautiful October sunrise.

Cover art of the 1972 Canadian Favourites edition of L.M. Montgomery’s novel ANNE OF INGLESIDE, depicting a red-haired adult woman wearing a pink dress with puffed sleeves, gazing at the reader with a neutral facial expression, holding orange flowers in her hands against a moonlit autumn backdrop.

Is there anything in the world more lovely than a fine October morning? When I ask questions like this Polly and Ted laugh heartlessly and say that if I try to describe an October sunrise I must do it by dead reckoning, because I never get up early enough to see. But that’s a libel—born of their mean malice, you know. I do get up early sometimes—and I always enjoy it so much that I make a resolution on the spot that I will rise with the lark every morning thereafter for the space of my natural life. And the next morning I sleep so late that I have to gobble down my breakfast standing, and pin my hat and put my gloves on as I tear down the street! There ought to be a law against making resolutions.

The full text of “Around the Table” appears exclusively in A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917, available from the publisher (at a substantial discount) or from your favourite bookseller.

Image: Detail from the Canadian Favourites edition of Anne of Ingleside, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1972. Artist unknown.

Cover Reveal: The L.M. Montgomery Reader in Paperback!

Cover art for The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume 1: A Life in Print Cover art for The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume 2: A Critical Heritage Cover of The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume 3: A Legacy in Review

I’m very pleased to announce the forthcoming publication, in paperback, of all three volumes of my award-winning critical anthology, The L.M. Montgomery Reader (Volume 1: A Life in Print; Volume 2: A Critical Heritage; Volume 3: A Legacy in Review) from University of Toronto Press. This project took up the bulk of my professional life over a five-year period, so I’m thrilled that all three volumes will be available in paperback soon.

Once again, the best way to order these books is from the University of Toronto Press website. Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3 are also available in hardcover and ebook formats.

The cover art features the covers of the first Canadian editions of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Chronicles of Avonlea published by the Ryerson Press (Toronto) in 1942 and 1943; these copies are part of my personal collection.

Revisiting Anne and Montgomery

Three new books released this month invite readers to revisit the story of Anne of Green Gables and the life story L.M. Montgomery prepared for posthumous publication in the form of ten handwritten volumes of journals. All three books are the result of careful dedication on the part of volume editors whose painstaking attention to detail has made rare archival material come alive for Montgomery’s worldwide readership.

Cover art for ANNE OF GREEN GABLES: THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

First, Halifax publisher Nimbus Publishing has released Anne of Green Gables: The Original Manuscript, edited by Carolyn Strom Collins. This book consists of a transcription of the handwritten manuscript of Anne of Green Gables that showcases for the first time Montgomery’s creative process and elaborate revision system. It also includes, as an appendix, a gallery of rare covers of translated editions of the novel. Past scholarship has turned to the manuscript of Anne of Green Gables to study part of the writing process of the novel—revealing such details as the fact that Montgomery considered “Laura” and “Gertrude” as the names of Anne’s bosom friend before settling on “Diana”—but this book marks the first time readers will be able to see that creative process for themselves.

Anne of Green Gables: The Original Manuscript will be launched at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown on 1 August 2019.

Cover art for Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery

Also from Nimbus Publishing is a paperback edition of Elizabeth Rollins Epperly’s Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery, first published in hardcover in 2008 as part of Penguin Canada’s 100 Years of Anne celebration. This book features beautiful reproductions of key pages from two of Montgomery’s PEI scrapbooks on which she pasted a wide range of ephemera in order to create a visual archive for her creative process. In her commentary, Epperly suggests linkages between the individual items, the stories they tell in Montgomery’s arrangement of them on the page, and the way that they inspired key moments in Anne of Green Gables. As the back cover rightly proclaims, this book offers readers “a revealing look inside the mind of one of the most cherished writers of the twentieth century.”

The new edition of Imagining Anne will be launched at UPEI’s Robertson Library in Charlottetown on 25 July 2019.

Cover art for L.M. Montgomery's Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930-1933

Finally, Rock’s Mills Press has published L.M. Montgomery’s Complete Journals: The Ontario Years, 1930–1933, the fifth volume of Montgomery’s unabridged Ontario journals prepared by Jen Rubio. This volume contains all diary entries dated 1930 to 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, at which point Montgomery and her family were living in Norval, Ontario. These were difficult years for her, especially due to a revelation made by one of her sons that distressed her so much that she was unable to write full diary entries for almost three years. Like Epperly’s Imagining Anne, this book offers readers “a revealing look inside the mind of one of the most cherished writers of the twentieth century,” but for very different reasons—it showcases the private anguish of a woman who, acutely aware of societal expectations, turned to her journal as a safe outlet for her worries and secrets, but her increased awareness of these journals as a document that she wanted to be published after her death also constrained her ability to be completely honest in this record of her life.

In addition to these three books, a number of recent journal articles and book chapters have been pushing the conversation about Montgomery’s life, work, and legacy in exciting new ways:

  • Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, “Reading Time: L.M. Montgomery and the ‘Alembic of Fiction’” (in Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies)
  • Irene Gammel, “‘We Are the Dead’: Rhetoric, Community and the Making of John McCrae’s Iconic War Poem” (in First World War Studies)
  • Caroline E. Jones, “Idylls of Play: L.M. Montgomery’s Child-Worlds” (in Children’s Play in Literature: Investigating the Strengths and the Subversions of the Playing Child)
  • Vappu Kannas, “‘Emily Equals Childhood and Youth and First Love’: Finnish Readers and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne and Emily Books” (in Reading Today)
  • Laura Leden, “Girls’ Classics and Constraints in Translation: A Case Study of Purifying Adaptation in the Swedish Translation of L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon” (in Barnboken)
  • Jane Nicholas, “The Children’s Séance: Child Death, the Body, and Grief in Interwar Ontario” (in The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth)
  • Christopher Parkes, “Anne Is Angry: Female Beauty and the Transformative Power of Cruelty in L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables” (in Cruel Children in Popular Texts and Cultures)
  • Julie A. Sellers, “‘A Good Imagination Gone Wrong’: Reading Anne of Green Gables as a Quixotic Novel” (in Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies)
  • Rob Shields, “Lifelong Sorrow: Settler Affect, State and Trauma at Anne of Green Gables” (in Settler Colonial Studies)
  • Emily Stokes-Rees, “Re-thinking Anne: Representing Japanese Culture at a Quintessentially Canadian Site” (in Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change)
  • Janet Wesselius, “Anne’s Body Has a Mind (and Soul) of Its Own: Embodiment and the Cartesian Legacy in Anne of Green Gables” (in The Embodied Child: Readings in Children’s Literature and Culture)

“‘Spleet-New’ from the Publishers”: Anne of Green Gables at 110

Cover art for Anne of Green Gables, published by L.C. Page and Company in 1908.

In a journal entry dated 20 June 1908, L.M. Montgomery wrote:

Today has been, as Anne herself would say, “an epoch in my life.” My book came today, fresh from the publishers. I candidly confess that it was for me a proud, wonderful, thrilling moment! There in my hand lay the material realization of all the dreams and hopes and ambitions and struggles of my whole conscious existence—my first book! Not a great book at all—but mine, mine, mine,—something to which I had given birth—something which, but for me, would never have existed.

This morning, one hundred and ten years later, at a desk several hundred kilometres away from Montgomery’s home in Cavendish, I began correcting the proofs of my next Montgomery book, A Name for Herself: Selected Writings, 1891–1917, due out in September. What I like best about this stage of a book’s production is that the manuscript that I’ve watched evolve through several stages of compilation, drafting, editing, annotating, and revising is finally starting to look like a book. Proofreading Montgomery’s work one last time against the original copy-texts also allows me to immerse myself in the text again. And while there are still some adjustments to be made to ensure that everything fits on the page, for the most part, the book is done.

The reason I’m especially drawn today to this quotation from her journal entry dated 20 June 1908 is because of how it appears in Montgomery’s 25,000-word celebrity memoir, “The Alpine Path,” first published in 1917 and included in my volume. Although Montgomery makes reference to a journal entry with that date, the entry she quotes reads slightly differently:

To-day has been, as Anne herself would say, “an epoch in my life.” My book came to-day, “spleet-new” from the publishers. I candidly confess that it was to me a proud and wonderful and thrilling moment. There, in my hand, lay the material realization of all the dreams and hopes and ambitions and struggles of my whole conscious existence—my first book. Not a great book, but mine, mine, mine, something which I had created.

In a sense, the two versions are more or less identical—the most noticeable difference is the term “spleet-new,” which she places within quotation marks (it’s basically an archaic form of “brand new” or “perfectly new”). But now that I’m at this late stage in the editorial process for a new edition of “The Alpine Path,” I see these discrepancies differently than I used to. One of the aspects of “The Alpine Path” that I discuss in the book is the source of all this material. Montgomery quotes self-consciously from her journals on a number of occasions, complete with dates, but, to quote my headnote in the book, “a closer comparison of this text and her private life writing reveals that she mined her journal for far more material than she let on, changing only details that would contradict the public myth of her life that she aimed to construct for public consumption.”

In other words, most of the text of “The Alpine Path” is cobbled together from journal entries dated 1892 to 1912. I identify all of these borrowings in my notes, but what I want to say for now is that, except for details she wanted to keep private, most of the changes between her journals and “The Alpine Path” are fairly minor. This means that, with some exceptions, the differences between the journal entries dated 20 June 1908 are more noticeable than those between her journals and the rest of the “Alpine Path” text.

The other question, of course, is this: which of these is the “true” entry of 20 June 1908?

Starting in the winter of 1919—two years after she wrote “The Alpine Path”—Montgomery announced her plan to transcribe all of her journals from a variety of notebooks into a uniform set of ledgers because she saw her journals as having significant cultural value. It’s these ten ledgers that survive as the “official” journals that form the basis of five volumes of Selected Journals and six volumes to date of Complete Journals. When she finished this transcription a few years later, she left explicit instructions to her heirs about both conserving the ledgers and publishing their contents after her death. Because she destroyed the original notebooks, we have to take her at her word that she transcribed the full text without alteration—even though she frequently uses the beginning or the ending of a ledger volume as an opportunity to reflect on her life. (Vanessa Brown and I talk about this and other archival mysteries in a chapter that’s reprinted in Volume 2 of The L.M. Montgomery Reader.)

So again—which is the “true” entry of 20 June 1908, given that the version that was actually written that day was subsequently destroyed? Did she add the term “spleet-new” when rewriting the entry for “The Alpine Path,” or did she delete it when she “transcribed” her early journals into uniform ledgers? There’s no way to answer this question, and for that reason I don’t know what to make of the fact that the terms “spleet-new” and “The Alpine Path” return in chapter 21 of Emily’s Quest, at which point Emily receives copies of her first book, The Moral of the Rose:

There lay her book. Her book, spleet-new from the publishers. It was a proud, wonderful, thrilling moment. The crest of the Alpine Path at last? Emily lifted her shining eyes to the deep blue November sky and saw peak after peak of sunlit azure still towering beyond. Always new heights of aspiration. One could never reach the top really. But what a moment when one reached a plateau and outlook like this! What a reward for the long years of toil and endeavour and disappointment and discouragement.

I’ve always enjoyed this kind of detective work, even when—especially when—burning questions aren’t followed by concrete, plausible answers. But I should get back to proofreading, since I have a fair bit of work left to do before I can receive “spleet-new” copies of A Name for Herself from my own publisher.

Anne of Green Gables: Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition

Cover art for Anne of Green Gables (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, 2017)

I’m pleased to announce the release yesterday of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Anne of Green Gables, a new edition of L.M. Montgomery’s best-selling novel with a foreword by J. Courtney Sullivan, an introduction and additional contributions by me, and a bonus essay by Montgomery. Although there are innumerable editions of this book currently on the market, most trade editions in North America reprint a version of the text that was modernized in the mid-twentieth century and that Americanizes spelling, updates hyphenation and punctuation, and makes a number of additional small changes to the text. The Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition is one of the few that includes the full text of the original 1908 edition, with fourteen corrections that are listed in the section entitled “A Note on the Text.”

Odd Trend in Public Domain Editions of L.M. Montgomery Texts

Those of you who follow this site on social media (specifically on Facebook or on Pinterest) have a sense already of how fascinated I’ve become with a phenomenon that has involved not only Montgomery but also any other still-popular author whose work is in the public domain: cheap reprint editions, either in print or in ebook form. Sometimes it seems as though new cheap editions of Montgomery’s books become available on Amazon every day, many of them offering numerous titles for 99 cents, most of them with cover art that is completely random and, as such, entirely unsuitable, with this recent cover of an edition of Rilla of Ingleside as just one example:

"Wake up, Rilla—it's war time!" A random and utterly unsuitable image for the cover of a recent cheap ebook reprint of <em>Rilla of Ingleside</em>.
“Wake up, Rilla—it’s war time!” A random and utterly unsuitable image for the cover of a recent cheap ebook reprint of Rilla of Ingleside.

In other cases, creators of these cheap ebooks take art from existing editions, which could mislead readers about what edition they are buying. A couple of months ago, one such edition of Rilla of Ingleside appeared with the cover art from the restored and annotated edition that Andrea McKenzie and I edited for Penguin Canada in 2010. Because most of the editions do not identify any creators or publishers and simply have the line “Sold by Amazon Digital Services LLC,” it is impossible for consumers to know who is behind these editions. Thankfully, though, when we reported this edition to Amazon, it was soon taken down all its platforms.

But now a new twist has occurred, evident in the following screen caps taken yesterday:




While it is true that these books are in the public domain and that anyone anywhere can reprint them or make ebook versions of them, these editions are most definitely not Norton Critical Editions or part of the Penguin Twentieth Century Classics series (which is now called Penguin Modern Classics) or the Oxford World’s Classics series. These are all existing covers, although the cover for The Story Girl is actually from one of eight abridgements done for Zonderkids over a decade ago. Although one would have to buy these Kindle editions to assess the extent that they are “annotated,” my sense is that, if these editions were sufficiently annotated for publication by Norton, Penguin, or Oxford, they would not be retailing for $3.73. Not to mention that the editor of a critical or annotated edition is always identified, since it is that editor’s expertise in the subject matter that is of paramount importance.

And then, of course, is this recent ebook, which appears to be an L.M. Montgomery title no one has ever heard of: Bev’s Childhood. It is actually The Story Girl.

So what do you make of this new trend? What should be most important in terms of the book market?

Cover Art for Three Anne Reissues from Virago Modern Classics

Virago Press, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group (London), has released the covers of its reissues of Anne of Green GablesAnne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island, scheduled for publication in March 2017 as part of the Virago Modern Classics series!

Anne of Green Gables (Virago Press, 2017) Anne of Avonlea (Virago Press, 2017) Anne of the Island (Virago Press, 2017)

These will be followed by reissues of Anne of Windy Willows (the UK version of Anne of Windy Poplars), Anne’s House of DreamsAnne of Ingleside, and Rainbow Valley later in spring 2017.

A number of Montgomery books have appeared within this imprint already: Emily of New MoonEmily Climbs, and Emily’s Quest in 2013, followed by Rilla of Ingleside and Jane of Lantern Hill in 2014. UK-based artist Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini contributed the artwork for all these titles.

Emily of New Moon (Virago Press, 2013) Emily Climbs (Virago Press, 2013) Emily's Quest (Virago Press, 2013) Rilla of Ingleside (Virago Press, 2014) Jane of Lantern Hill (Virago Press, 2014)

Breakthrough’s Anne to Air on 15 February 2016

Poster for L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, produced by Breakthrough Entertainment
Poster for L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, produced by Breakthrough Entertainment

An article in the Charlottetown Guardian announced today that Breakthrough Entertainment’s telefilm L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables will premiere on the YTV network in Canada on 15 February 2015, to coincide with Islander Day in Prince Edward Island. No news yet on broadcast details outside Canada or plans for a DVD release.

This news coincides with the announcement that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has ordered an eight-episode series based on Anne of Green Gables from writer/producer Moira Walley-Beckett—an announcement that has prompted a wide range of responses from commentators. Also published today is an interview with Miranda de Pencier, who is one of Walley-Beckett’s collaborators on the project and who played Josie Pye in three Anne of Green Gables television miniseries from Sullivan Entertainment: in her view, given how highly popular remakes are in Britain, there is definitely room for an ongoing Anne of Green Gables series alongside existing adaptations of the book for stage and screen: “They can all exist alongside one another.”

To see the trailer for Breakthrough’s highly anticipated telefilm, visit the website for Breakthrough Entertainment.

Responses to New Anne Television Series

Anne of Green Gables Meets Breaking Bad?
Anne of Green Gables Meets Breaking Bad? Source: Unknown.

As I reported yesterday, news broke this week that the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had ordered an eight-episode limited series based on L.M. Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables from producer Moira Walley-Beckett, whose past writing credits include the television series Breaking Bad. The news received rather mixed comments, judging by the comments left on various news sites and even on the Facebook page for L.M. Montgomery Online: for some commentators, Sullivan Entertainment’s 1985 miniseries is of such high quality that any attempt to remake it is pointless (for several fans, no one but Megan Follows can ever play Anne), whereas others voiced concern about the decision to hire Walley-Beckett to helm the project, given not only her past writing credits but also the statement that the series would “chart new territory” by depicting “new adventures reflecting timeless issues, including themes of identity, sexism, bullying, prejudice, and trusting one’s self.”

In the midst of this mixed reaction, several additional articles were released in the last few days, emphasizing why a new take on L.M. Montgomery’s 108-year-old novel is not only understandable but absolutely necessary:

As for me, I’m thrilled that a talented writer/producer wants to interpret Montgomery’s best-known novel and ever-appealing protagonist for the twenty-first century, just as I am always fascinated by adaptations of Anne of Green Gables and its sequels for stage and screen, from a 1934 Hollywood “talkie” and Kevin Sullivan’s work to the recent hit play Anne and Gilbert and Breakthrough Entertainment’s upcoming telefilm. Given how meaningful the character Anne Shirley is to so many readers worldwide, surely there is room for a new take on this ever-popular character.

New Anne Television Series Greenlit by CBC

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation announced yesterday that it had greenlit a new, eight-episode television series based on Anne of Green Gables. Entitled Anne, the project is expected to go into production this spring for release sometime in 2017. The project will be created and written by Moira Walley-Beckett, who received an Emmy Award for her work as a writer on the television series Breaking Bad and who will serve as executive producer alongside Miranda de Pencier, Alison Owen, and Debra Hayward.

At its heart, ANNE is a coming-of-age story about an outsider who, against all odds and numerous challenges, fights for acceptance, for her place in the world and for love. The drama series centres on a young orphaned girl who, after an abusive childhood spent in orphanages and the homes of strangers, is mistakenly sent to live with an elderly spinster and her aging brother. Over time, 13-year-old Anne will transform their lives and eventually the small town in which they live, with her unique spirit, fierce intellect and brilliant imagination. While the new series will follow a similar storyline to the book that millions of readers around the world know and love, it will also chart new territory. Anne and the rest of the characters in and around Green Gables will experience new adventures reflecting timeless issues, including themes of identity, sexism, bullying, prejudice, and trusting one’s self.

This story has been reported widely, in venues including The Hollywood Reporter, The Toronto StarVariety, Entertainment Weekly, Entertainment Tonight Canada, The Guardian, the National PostQuill and Quire, and Jezebel. The satiric website The Beaverton has also commented on this development, in a news story entitled “CBC Courts Younger Viewers with Another Reboot of 100 Year Old Novel”:

“Kids these days are done with stories where things happen,” said CBC consultant and world’s oldest child psychologist Obadiah Sugarman. “We’ll finally be giving them the stiff Victorian morality that I assume is in vogue. Not to mention, doing a period piece is a great way to make sure white people are adequately represented on television.”

“I can’t wait for yet more Anne,” enthused 22 year-old Alexandra Lewis, who has only been alive for 7 of Anne’s over two dozen adaptations. “Honestly there’s no better use of public funds than promoting the work of a long-dead, already immensely popular author.”

Jokes aside, what few if any of these reports has mentioned is that a new telefilm version of Anne of Green Gables by Toronto company Breakthrough Productions is already in post-production and is expected to air on YTV in the months to come, or that a film version of Anne of Green Gables: The Musical was announced as in development in September 2013. And what none of the sites reporting on this story has noted, as far as I know, is that producer Miranda de Pencier portrayed Josie Pye in three Anne of Green Gables miniseries by Sullivan Entertainment.

30 November 1874

L.M. Montgomery in her early forties, 1917
L.M. Montgomery in her early forties, 1917

Today, on what would have been L.M. Montgomery’s 141st birthday (she was born on 30 November 1874), I would like to share with you an extract from a journal entry dated exactly 101 years ago, on the occasion of Montgomery’s fortieth birthday:

Once I thought forty must be the end of everything. But it isn’t! I don’t feel any older today than yesterday—when I was only 39! Or the day before yesterday when I was—19! Thank God we don’t feel old. Life is much richer, fuller, happier, more comfortable for me now than it was when I was twenty. I have won the success I resolved to win twenty years ago. It is worth the struggle—but I would not wish to be twenty again with the struggle still before me.

Montgomery is trending on the Internet as I write this, due in large part to several Google Doodles paying tribute to Anne of Green Gables. And as Melanie J. Fishbane has pointed out in a blog post published earlier this afternoon, this is an exciting time for Montgomery and especially for Anne, thanks to the upcoming new telefilm version of Anne of Green Gables, a shout-out about the novel in a recent episode of The Simpsons, and numerous celebrity mentions. A list of “Five Fast Facts You Need to Know” about Montgomery was also published today, on the website Heavy, and mentions her rediscovered final book, The Blythes Are Quoted.

I’m glad, because all this media attention reflects the continued relevance and the persistent quality of Montgomery’s writing, not only as works of literature but also as the basis for an enduring popular culture icon and a set of new Anne texts for stage and screen. I’m looking forward to delving back into the novel Anne of Green Gables next term, when I  teach the book in an undergraduate children’s literature course at Wilfrid Laurier University, as an example of a crossover text that continues to appeal to both adults and children.

The Business of Anne on CBC Radio Archives

Cover art from Anne of Green Gables, published by L.C. Page and Company in 1908.
Cover art from Anne of Green Gables, published by L.C. Page and Company in 1908.

The website for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation posted earlier today a link to a CBC Radio segment that aired twenty-seven years ago today, on 14 August 1988, on the growing tension between Montgomery’s heirs and the makers of Anne-related commodities on Prince Edward Island—a tension that would lead to the creation of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority (operated jointly by Montgomery’s heirs and by the Province of Prince Edward Island) in 1992.

The article claims that 14 August 1988 marked the eightieth anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables, but this is incorrect: the book was published on 13 June 1908.

Anne of Green Gables Movie in Production at Breakthrough Entertainment

Major news has been released concerning Breakthrough Entertainment’s upcoming movie Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. According to a press release dated today, the production will air on Corus Entertainment–owned YTV early in 2016 and will star thirteen-year-old Ella Ballentine as Anne Shirley. More news will be posted here as it becomes available.

Ella Ballentine and Kate Macdonald Butler on the set of Breakthrough Entertainment’s upcoming movie Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Photo by Steve Wilkie.

Anne of Green Gables: New Reviews!

Cover art from Anne of Green Gables, published by L.C. Page and Company in 1908.
Cover art from Anne of Green Gables, published by L.C. Page and Company in 1908.

Recently, while searching through online databases for L.M. Montgomery’s periodical pieces, I was able to add several more reviews of Anne of Green Gables to my collection. One of them, from The Journal of Education (Boston), actually predates a rather infamous review that appeared in The New York Times Saturday Review and that I claimed in the introduction to The L.M. Montgomery Reader, Volume 3: A Legacy in Review to be “the first known review of Anne of Green Gables.” Of course, it mistakenly calls the book Anne of Gray Gables and gets some plot details wrong, but it is nevertheless of interest as now being the first known review of Montgomery’s first novel—at least until something earlier turns up!

Young and old will be interested in Anne and in her charming, livable manners. In spite of her uncongenial surroundings, the harshness of her unsympathetic sister, the heroism stands forth in marked contrast and forms a central figure about which the thread of the story is spun. The author evidently understands girls, and her appreciation of their nature has fitted her to write of the conditions and qualities which surround them. The story is beautifully illustrated.

In addition, two reviews that I came across only yesterday emphasize the book as appealing particularly to girls, as opposed to most of the early reviews, which saw the book as being targeted to adults or else to young and old alike.

The Times–Dispatch of Richmond, Virginia recommends it on the basis of the qualities it offers readers:

A charming story told in a charming way, full to the brim of imagination and the poetical outlook which transforms all living with beauty and grace. A story in which a little waif is rescued from dependence and being made the recipient of kindness and love, repays it “with good measure, pressed down and running over.”

A book which all girls ought to read and enjoy for the sake of its wholesome spirit and its bright, sparkling humor.

The phrase “with good measure, pressed down and running over” alludes to Luke 6.38 in the Christian Bible: “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap” (New International Version).

The Philadelphia Inquirer does likewise, but it tends to have a rather narrow-minded view of female readers:

In these days it is difficult to get stories that are just what every mother wants for a girl of from fourteen to seventeen years old. There never has been a successor to Louise M. Alcott, but it is to be hoped that she will appear soon. It is with full knowledge of conditions as they exist both from the point of view of the publishers and the parents, that we recommend “Anne of Green Gables,” by L.M. Montgomery to all young girls who want some inspiration in life, and who do not find exactly what they want on the bookshelves because of their own ignorance.

Mothers are not very astute in the matter of literature or they would not complain that they are afraid to let their daughters read any of the current literature. There is plenty of the best.

Anne was a young orphan who was adopted by a Canadian family and lived the simple life for a while under conditions which were a little disturbing, but which in the end made a woman of her. It is a wholesome and stimulating book that will help all and hurt none. Published by L.C. Page & Co.

So far I have added to this website lists of reviews of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, Kilmeny of the Orchard, and The Story Girl, with reviews of the remaining novels to follow.

Major Update: Anne of Green Gables Adaptation by Breakthrough Entertainment

A few weeks ago, Toronto production company Breakthrough Entertainment added to its website a page for its upcoming adaptation of Anne of Green Gables. Initially announced as a thirteen-episode series, this ninety-minute telefilm will be directed by John Kent Harrison from a script by Susan Coyne:

Based on the globally beloved classic children’s novel that was first published in 1908 by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables is the story of a fiercely imaginative little girl who, with her irrepressible spirit, touches the lives of everyone that she meets. In particular, it is the story of Anne’s stormy relationship with the strait-laced Marilla Cuthbert who discovers through Anne a capacity for love that she never knew she had.

Details about casting, filming locations, and possible release dates are not yet available but will be posted here once they are confirmed.

Announcing a New Television Adaptation of Anne of Green Gables

Breakthrough Entertainment has issued a press release announcing plans for an all-new, thirteen-episode television series based on L.M. Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables:

Leading Canadian production-distribution studio Breakthrough Entertainment and the heirs of beloved Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery have joined forces to develop and produce a 13-episode series for television based on one of Canada—and the world’s—most celebrated and eternal book series, Anne of Green Gables. Announcement of the all-new Anne of Green Gables television series was made jointly at the Banff World Media Festival by Breakthrough Entertainment principals Ira Levy and Peter Williamson, and Executive Producer Joan Lambur and Kate Macdonald Butler, granddaughter of author Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Set for production in 2013 in the Canadian Maritimes, Breakthrough Entertainment’s Anne of Green Gables will be a contemporary retelling of the famed book series while capturing author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s original vision for her characters and stories.

First published in 1908, Anne of Green Gables remains an iconic work selling more than 50 million copies worldwide.  The eight classic Anne of Green Gables novels have attracted generations of readers inspired by the adventures of the spirited redhead Anne Shirley, who comes to stay at Green Gables and wins the hearts of everyone she meets.

For more on this contemporary retelling of Anne of Green Gables, see the article at The Hollywood Reporter.