Year in Review: 2008 (Part 1)

Part 1 of an overview of L.M. Montgomery-related events and publications from 2008, summarizing details first released in seventy blog posts.

Preamble
New Versions of Older Texts
Related Content
Print
Screen
Stage
Web
Calls for Papers
The Death of L.M. Montgomery
In Memoriam
Our Anniversary
Image Credit

Preamble

This year, the centenary of Anne of Green Gables prompted an unprecedented number of books, contributions to scholarship, adaptations, and discussions. There were also so many academic and public events this year that I decided to list them separately. I received so many email notices throughout the year that I entitled one blog post “Chronicles of My Inbox”—which inevitably led to a sequel post, “Further Chronicles of My Inbox.” Overall, the initiatives that occurred throughout the year gave people all over the world the opportunity to learn more about L.M. Montgomery’s life, work, and legacy, and (of equal importance) the opportunity to get together with each other for discussion and debate.

In seventy blog posts published throughout the year, I attempted to capture some of the highlights of this anniversary. I’m grateful to all the people who wrote to me to ensure I hadn’t missed something they’d come across: these include Eric Bungay, Cort Egan, Irene Gammel, Carole Gerson, Joshua Ginter, Yuka Kajihara, Michelle Levy, Lisa Lightbourn-Lay, Jason Nolan, Helen Salmon, and Chris Yordy.

New Versions of Older Texts

In a sense, a CBC News article that appeared on 8 October 2008, entitled “Writers Challenged to Update Wind in the Willows on Its 100th Birthday,” encapsulates the Anne- and Montgomery-related activities throughout this year:

The 100th anniversary of Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows will be celebrated with a competition to write a modern version of the children’s classic.

The River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in Britain has launched a writing competition that challenges authors to put a modern take on Grahame’s themes.

“Kenneth Grahame knew all about the power of the river on the imagination, and on our real lives,” museum representative Paul Mainds told BBC.

“This competition gives authors the opportunity to re-animate these themes and make them more relevant for today’s young readers, especially in light of the environmental issues that now affect our rivers and the wildlife that lives in and around them.”

Writers are challenged to pen a “river-related” short story “for our times.”

The museum, on the river Thames, has a permanent exhibition dedicated to Wind in the Willows.

Grahame’s tale of the adventures of Toad, Mole, Ratty and Badger was published Oct. 8, 1908, four months after he left his job at the Bank of England. . . .

When I blogged about this news article on October 8, I ended with the following: “The news of this competition made me wonder about Anne of Green Gables, which was published less than four months before Wind in the Willows. If there were a competition to write a modern version of this novel, how would it be done? What would need to be updated, changed, altered, or reemphasized?”

A reader named Holly wrote with her response to those questions:

I would hope that no one would ever try and update it…I cant believe they’re doing it with Wind in the Willows. What would Anne say? :> She’d cry sacrilege! To update them it would be a matter of changing some surface things; technologies, religious views, slang and gender roles. But doing that or anything else would be horrible. I believe that what has made the books so popular all these decades is their ‘Shakespearian’ truths. No matter what era they belong to, the books reflect human nature as it is. Comedy mixed up with tragedy…and let’s hope that will never change!

In a sense, this comment captures some of the fascinating ways that people all over the world frequently respond to new information, new insights, and new interpretations that clash with what they perceive a literary work or a character to be, to mean, to signify. This resistance speaks to the fierce attachment so many readers have to Anne of Green Gables.

Print

“100 Years of Anne” (Penguin Canada)

In February, Penguin Canada (Toronto) released three books as part of a major publishing campaign that they called “100 Years of Anne”: a hardcover edition with the original cover (featuring a note from Montgomery’s grandchildren David Macdonald and Kate Macdonald Butler), a prequel by Budge Wilson called Before Green Gables, and Elizabeth Rollins Epperly’s Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery.

The first two titles appeared simultaneously in the U.S. from G.P. Putnam’s Sons, whereas Before Green Gables likewise appeared in the UK from Puffin Books. Still, occasional changes in chapter titles hint at minor differences in the texts of these three editions:

Chapter Number	Title in Canadian edition	Title in U.S. edition	Title in UK edition
33	New Directions	On the Way	On the Way
39	An Expedition	A Journey	A Journey
46	Another Surprise Visit	A Surprise Visit	Another Surprise Visit
50	Tragedy	Disaster	Disaster
54	Goodbyes	Good-byes	Goodbyes
60	Afterwards	Afterward	Afterwards
70	Mrs. Spencer	Mrs. Spencer Arrives	Mrs. Spencer

The choice to rename chapter 33 as “On the Way” strikes me as curious, given that it matches the title of chapter 71.

Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery

Elizabeth Rollins Epperly

Penguin Canada published Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery, a trade non-fiction book by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, in February. Combining reproductions of selected pages from two of L.M. Montgomery’s scrapbooks from 1893 to 1910 along with original commentary, the book features a foreword by Adrienne Clarkson and an afterword by Francis W.P. Bolger.

Celebrated author Lucy Maud Montgomery was an avid keeper of journals and scrapbooks, collecting mementoes that together form a portrait of a fascinating Canadian life more than one hundred years ago. Her Island scrapbooks, from the years 1893 to 1910, provide a revealing look into her world and her inspiration during the period when she created the beloved character of Anne Shirley, while living in Atlantic Canada as a college student, teacher, and writer. In celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables, Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Rollins Epperly has selected and annotated more than one hundred pages of these scrapbooks to produce a beautiful gift book for Montgomery readers, history buffs, and scrapbook enthusiasts.

Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic

Irene Gammel

Key Porter Books (Toronto) published Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic, a trade non-fiction book by Irene Gammel, in April.

By any standard, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables is a stunning success. The novel about a plucky redhead from Prince Edward Island has been in print for one hundred years, sold more than 50 million copies, been translated into more than 35 languages (including Braille), and become the focus of international academic attention.

But why Anne? How did this little book create such enduring interest? The answer, though more intriguing than even Anne could have imagined, is strangely elusive. In her journal, Maud’s quick pen would froth up the tiniest details of her life into dramatic events, but that same pen revealed barely a word about its most famous creation—at least not until many years later. As a result, the novel’s secrets have remained sealed for over a century.

Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic is the untold story of both Anne and her creator. Irene Gammel delves into the life of a writer who found inspiration everywhere she looked—from fashion magazines and American mass market periodicals to the quiet landways and babbling brooks of her own community. In her early writing, Maud consciously imitated the formula fiction of the day to create marketable stories for juvenile periodicals, religious newspapers, and glamorous women’s magazines. But unlike so many writers of her era, Maud was willing to push beyond these boundaries. Ultimately, in the storm that brewed up the novel, she transcended these influences to create a twentieth-century literary classic that would conquer the world.

Blending biography with cultural history, penetrating and uncensored, Looking for Anne captures both the spirit of Marilla’s critical probing for “bald facts” and Anne’s belief in the infinite power of the imagination. It is a must-read for anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of Anne with an “e.”

A U.S. edition, entitled Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic, followed from St. Martin’s Press (New York) in July.

In June 1908, a red-haired orphan appeared on the streets of Boston and a modern legend was born. That little girl was Anne Shirley, better known as Anne of Green Gables, and her first appearance was in a book that has sold more than 50 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than thirty-five languages (including Braille). The author who created her was Lucy Maud Montgomery, a writer who revealed very little of herself and her method of crafting a story. On the centenary of its publication, Irene Gammel tells the braided story of both Anne and Maud and, in so doing, shows how a literary classic was born.

Montgomery’s own life began in the rural Cavendish family farmhouse on Prince Edward Island, the place that became the inspiration for Green Gables. Mailmen brought the world to the farmhouse’s kitchen door in the form of American mass market periodicals, sparking the young Maud’s imagination. From the vantage point of her small world, Montgomery pored over these magazines, gleaning bits of information about how to dress, how to behave, and how a proper young lady should grow. She began to write, learning how to craft marketable stories from the magazines’ popular fiction; at the same time the fashion photos inspired her visual imagination. One photo that especially intrigued her was that of a young woman named Evelyn Nesbit, the model for painters and photographers and lover of Stanford White. That photo was the spark for what became Anne Shirley.

Blending biography with cultural history, Looking for Anne of Green Gables is a gold mine for fans of the novel and answers a trunk load of questions: Where did Anne get the “e” at the end of her name? How did Montgomery decide to give her red hair? How did Montgomery’s courtship and marriage to Reverend Ewan Macdonald affect the story? Irene Gammel’s dual biography of Anne Shirley and the woman who created her will delight the millions who have loved the red-haired orphan ever since she took her first step inside the gate at Green Gables farm in Avonlea.

Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings

Mary Henley Rubio

Doubleday Canada published Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings, a book-length biography by Mary Henley Rubio, in October. The book was subsequently shortlisted for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

The writings of Lucy Maud Montgomery are so familiar and captivating that it is easy to feel we know her. But the complex woman behind the classic story Anne of Green Gables experienced the dark side of life as well as the intense joy of creativity. In this revelatory biography of one of Canada’s most internationally celebrated writers, Mary Henley Rubio looks far beyond Montgomery’s own published journals and draws on years of primary research and interviews, as well as a wealth of previously undiscovered material. The result is an account of a fascinating life that is certain to surprise.

She was born in 1874 in the same lush countryside of Prince Edward Island that her novels have made so famous, but Montgomery’s home life could never measure up to the idyllic nature of her surroundings. Raised by her grandparents following her mother’s early death, Montgomery craved affection and indulgence that proved elusive. A gifted student, she found that her ardent creativity and ambition clashed with expectations placed upon women in the nineteenth century. Her professional accomplishments were exceptional, and on the surface her family life seemed picture-perfect, yet Montgomery endured intense hardships, including legal fights with her publisher, shattering experiences with motherhood and as wife to a deeply troubled man, and the anguish of her own mental instability.

This comprehensive and penetrating account of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life, all set in rich social context, and featuring previously unseen photographs, is sure to take its place as the definitive biography of this literary icon.

Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery

Elizabeth Waterston

Oxford University Press (Toronto) published Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery, a book-length study by Elizabeth Waterston, in June.

L.M. Montgomery grew up in Prince Edward Island, a real place of “politics and potatoes.” But it’s her fictional world, a richly textured imaginative landscape, that has captivated a world of readers since 1908, when Anne of Green Gables became the first of Montgomery’s long string of bestsellers.

In this wide ranging and highly readable book, Elizabeth Waterston uses the term “magic” to suggest that peculiar, indefinable combination of attributes that unpredictably results in creative genius. Montgomery’s intelligence, her drive, and her sense of humour are essential components of this success. Waterston also features what Montgomery called her “dream life,” a “strange inner life of fancy which had always existed side by side with my outer life.” This special ability to look beyond the veil, to access vibrant inner vistas, produced deceptively layered fictions out of a life that saw not just its share of both fame and ill-fortune, but also what Waterston calls “dark passions.”

Designed as a companion to Mary Rubio’s new biography of Montgomery, The Gift of Wings, this is the first book to reinterpret Montgomery’s writing in light of important new information about her life.

Storm and Dissonance: L.M. Montgomery and Conflict

Jean Mitchell, Editor

Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Newcastle, UK) published Storm and Dissonance: L.M. Montgomery and Conflict, a collection of essays edited and introduced by Jean Mitchell, in May. Based on an international conference hosted by the L.M. Montgomery Institute and held at the University of Prince Edward Island in June 2006, the book features original scholarship by Suvi Ahola, Danièle Allard, Sarah Clair Atkinson, Rita Bode, Carolyn Strom Collins, Margaret Doody, Trinna S. Frever, Carole Gerson, Kylee-Anne Hingston, Nancy Holmes, Satu Koskimies, Benjamin Lefebvre, Heidi MacDonald, Andrea McKenzie, Susan Meyer, E. Holly Pike, Laura Robinson, Pamela Rossi-Keen, Martina Seifert, Margaret Steffler, Kate Sutherland, Hildi Froese Tiessen, and Paul Tiessen, as well as an epilogue by Jane Ledwell.

This collection of essays explores the darker side of L.M. Montgomery’s fiction and life writing. An international best-selling novelist, Montgomery’s many novels, particularly Anne of Green Gables, have enchanted readers for over a century. However, Montgomery’s own disenchantment made evident with the posthumous publication of her private journals, ruptured the easy conflation of Montgomery as author and person. The tension between public enchantment and private discontent informs Montgomery’s work and life. By exploring the more transgressive aspects of Montgomery’s writing, these essays provide new insights into the complexity of her work and life. Montgomery’s gentle landscapes and optimistic stories, as the authors suggest, often contain undercurrents of anger, malice, obsession, loss and violence. As one contributor, Margaret Doody, argues “destructiveness plays around the edges of all of her fiction.” Essays explore the anguish of mother loss, her ambivalent depictions of the maternal, the experiences War and the Great Depression as well as a range of issues related to gender, class, nature and social and cultural change. Attention to the dissonance and conflict as these essays demonstrates, provides compelling and new space for theoretical readings of Montgomery’s work.

Canadian Children’s Literature / Littérature canadienne pour la jeunesse (Fall 2008)

The fall 2008 issue of Canadian Children’s Literature / Littérature candienne pour la jeunesse, published at the Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures at the University of Winnipeg, includes several items about the life and work of L.M. Montgomery.

Margaret Mackey (University of Alberta), “Anne of Green Gables, Elijah of Buxton, and Margaret of Newfoundland” (7–29)

Kathleen A. Miller (University of Delaware), “Weaving a Tapestry of Beauty: Anne Shirley as Domestic Artist” (30–49)

Lindsey McMaster (Nipissing University), “The ‘Murray Look’: Trauma as Family Legacy in L.M. Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon Trilogy” (50–74)

Perry Nodelman (University of Winnipeg), “Rereading Anne of Green Gables in Anne of Ingleside: L.M. Montgomery’s Variations” (75–97)

The issue also contains an editorial by Perry Nodelman; a short article entitled “The L.M. Montgomery Collection at the University of Guelph” by Lorne Bruce, Wayne Johnston, and Helen Salmon; and review articles by Carole Gerson and E. Holly Pike.

Tie-In Editions

Key Porter Books published Kevin Sullivan’s Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, adapted from his screenplay, in October, several weeks before the premiere of his film of the same name on CTV in December. Sullivan Entertainment’s publishing house, Davenport Press, published tie-in editions of Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island with photographs from Sullivan miniseries as cover art; an audio CD of Anne of Green Gables, read by Kevin Sullivan; Anne of Green Gables: The Official Film Companion, adapted by Kevin Sullivan, and Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning; Official Movie Companion.

Additional Print Texts

Fitzhenry and Whiteside (Markham, ON) published Anne of Green Gables: 100th Anniversary Diary and Anne of Green Gables: 100th Anniversary Diary.

Kids Can Press (Toronto) published Lucy Maud Montgomery, a biography for children by Elizabeth MacLeod and illustrated by John Mantha, in April, as part of its Kids Can Read series.

Parragon Books (Bath, UK) published an abridged edition of Anne of Green Gables retold by Gaby Goldsack and illustrated by Paula Bowles.

White Knight Books published Don Harron’s Anne of Green Gables the Musical: 101 Things You Didn’t Know (first listed on Amazon.ca as A Hundred Things You Didn’t Know About Anne of Green Gables, the Musical) in April.

Several more contributions appeared throughout 2008, including book-length studies, book-length biographies, dissertations/theses, book chapters, journal articles, shorter extensions, paratexts, reference items, magazine items, newspaper items, and reviews, as well as the newsletters Cordially Yours and The Shining Scroll.

Screen

Emily of New Moon on DVD

Echo Bridge Home Entertainment released Emily of New Moon: The Complete First Season on DVD on 9 September.

Premiere and Broadcast of Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning

Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning, a telefilm written and directed by Kevin Sullivan, had its world premiere at the 2008 Boston Film Festival on Monday, 15 September 2008. The synopsis on their schedule reads as follows:

Kevin Sullivan’s original story explores the unwritten origins of the iconic character, Anne of Green Gables, as Anne finds a secret letter in the floorboards of Green Gables, almost 50 years after she arrived on Prince Edward Island, that reveals her troubled family history.

The 141-minute film, which stars Barbara Hershey, Hannah Endicott-Douglas, Rachel Blanchard, and Shirley MacLaine, aired on CTV on 14 December. A press release from Sullivan Entertainment included a detailed synopsis:

It is 1945 and Anne Shirley (Academy-award nominee and Golden Globe winner, Barbara Hershey) now a successful, middle-aged writer has returned to Prince Edward Island for an extended visit. On a whim, she agrees to write a play for a theatre producer. The play, she reasons, will keep her busy—at least busy enough to not go out of her mind with worry about her only son who has yet to return from the war overseas. But a long-hidden secret in the form of a letter from her errant father, discovered under the floorboards at Green Gables, provides a distraction of its own. As Anne struggles to complete the play, she delves into long-buried memories, reliving the troubled years before she arrived as an orphan at the Green Gables farmhouse. She is forced to confront the fact that she made up stories about her life; after her mother died and when her father deserted his young daughter. During that time, Young Anne (newcomer Hannah Endicott-Douglas), is taken into the care of a wealthy matriarch, Amelia Thomas (Academy-award winner Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter-in-law, Louisa (Rachel Blanchard), which changes her life forever.

Over the course of one remarkable summer, Anne Shirley discovers the astonishing truth about her father, the origins of her quest for “kindred spirits” and the roots of her brilliant, magical imagination.

Stage

New Theatre Festival in Cavendish

On May 28, an article entitled “New Theatre Festival Takes Root in L.M. Montgomery’s Avonlea” appeared on the website for CBC News:

A new theatre festival soon to begin in Cavendish, P.E.I., will present a suite of plays dating from the lifetime of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables.

The Island community, already a mecca for Anne lovers from around the world, is beginning the new summer theatre festival in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables.

Duncan McIntosh, a director of theatre, opera and special events, is the artistic director.

He plans a season based on playwrights who inspired L.M. Montgomery, who lived from 1874 to 1942, or whose works were influenced by the writer.

The first season will include:

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, dating from 1908, in a new adaptation by McIntosh.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, first performed 1895.

Village Wooing by George Bernard Shaw, written in 1933.

Previews begin June 20 with the season to run from June 27 to Aug. 31. Anne of Green Gables was first published on June 20, 1908.

A 200-seat theatre has been created in the Church at Avonlea Village, a church built in 1872 and moved from its original location in Long River.

“It was a church that Montgomery attended, that she dreamed and hoped and prayed and imagined her immortal stories in, this church,” McIntosh told CBC News.

“And we as a community of Cavendish thought this was a perfect place to make our contribution to the celebration of the 100th anniversary.”

McIntosh, who directed the dedication ceremonies of Canada’s war memorial in Vimy, France, also directed the world premiere of Anne and Gilbert, a spinoff of the long-running Anne musical in Charlottetown.

He is a past artistic director of the Charlottetown Festival, the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton and Theatre Plus in Toronto, and has been a resident director at the Canadian Film Centre and the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.

Web

Digital Collection of L.M. Montgomery Photographs

The University of Guelph Library launched a searchable digital collection of L.M. Montgomery’s photographs, available through the Our Ontario portal.

Anne’s Diary and Trademark Trouble

On 13 January 2008, a news article entitled “Website Not a Kindred Spirit, Says Anne Authority,” appeared on the website for CBC News:

The P.E.I. government is investigating a new website for young girls that it says is using images of Anne of Green Gables without permission.

Called annesdiary.com, the Toronto-based website says it is “inspired by the much-loved Anne Of Green Gables novels.” Aimed at girls aged six to 14, it claims to be the most secure website for children in the world. It requires a fingerprint reader and registration papers signed by a professional as recognized by the company running the site.

But it is not the company’s security protocol that caught the attention of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority. Anne is a trademark owned by the government of Prince Edward Island, and Development Minister Richard Brown told CBC News on Thursday they take violations of that trademark seriously.

“We’re pursuing this quite vigorously,” said Brown, who visited the website and noted many references to and images of Anne.

“Anne of Green Gables is a trademark of Prince Edward Island, and we’re going to protect that trademark.”

The Anne Authority, which is jointly owned by the province and the heirs of author L. M. Montgomery, was established to ensure only a wholesome image of Anne is reflected in products it licenses. The authority says they haven’t given permission to annesdiary.com.

Emily Want, spokeswoman for annesdiary.com, said she approached the Montgomery heirs for permission to use Anne images, but the family was not interested in her request. Want said she’ll wait to hear from the Anne Authority before she decides her next move.

The web site features a certain redheaded girl in pigtails.
(Annesdiary.com)

Interview on Les arts et les autres

Next, on 31 May 2008, I shared that the Société Radio-Canada program Les arts et les autres would interview me (in French) about the centenary of Anne of Green Gables:

I will be interviewed by Line Boily on her radio show Les arts et les autres on Monday, 2 June 2008, at 1:05 EST, on Radio-Canada 1 (French-language CBC). The topic is Anne of Green Gables and I will be commenting on its origins, its continued international popularity in the centenary year, and its success in adaptations such as movies, musicals, and tourist sites in Ontario and Prince Edward Island. Since I am presently in Vancouver attending Congress, I will be speaking to her from Studio C at CBC Vancouver.

Les arts et les autres is broadcast across Ontario; you can also listen to it live through the Radio-Canada website.

Je serai l’invité de Line Boily à l’émission de radio Les arts et les autres ce lundi, 2 juin 2008, à 13h05 (heure normale de l’est), à Radio-Canada (première chaine). L’entrevue porte sur le roman Anne . . . La maison aux pignons verts : ses origines, sa popularité internationale continue pendant l’année de son centième anniversaire, et son succès dans les médias connexes, telles que le petit écran, la comédie musicale, et le site touristique en Ontario et à l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard. Étant donné que je suis présentement à Vancouver pour assister au Congrès des sciences humaines, je lui parlerai du Studio C à Radio-Canada Vancouver.

L’émission est diffusée à travers l’Ontario; vous pouvez également écouter à l’émission au site web de Radio-Canada.

News from the Lucy Maud Montgomery Birthplace

On 27 June, I shared an extract from a recent CBC News article about a break-in at the Lucy Maud Montgomery Birthplace in New London, Prince Edward Island:

The New London home where Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables, was born was broken into on Monday night.

The incident was part of a string of break and enters in the area that night.

The board that runs the museum and bookstore says none of the displays were damaged, and money isn’t kept in the facility overnight.

Montgomery was born in 1874 in a small white and green house, which sits at the corner of Route 6 and 20. A replica of the writer’s wedding dress and scrapbooks containing stories and poems are displayed at the museum.

On 26 July, I posted that Jack Zipes, who wrote the introduction to a recent Modern Library edition of Anne of Green Gables, and Jennifer Holm, a two-time Newbery Honor recipient, had appeared on American University Radio’s Diane Rehm Show on 23 July 2008 to talk about the centenary of the novel.

First Edition of Anne of Green Gables for Sale

Late in the year, on 5 December, an article appeared on the website for CBC News concerning a first edition of Anne of Green Gables:

Christie’s in New York will auction a first edition of Anne of Green Gables on Friday morning.

The 1908 book by L. M. Montgomery, which spawned an entire industry on Prince Edward Island, including Canada’s longest running musical, is described on the auction house’s website as “the property of a lady.”

Several movie versions of the book have also been made.

First editions of Anne are rare. While it eventually became a worldwide phenomenon, published in at least 30 languages, the first run of the book was small.

The edition on sale Friday is described as unusual because it comes in a brown cover. Most of the first editions come in a green cover.

Christie’s expects the book to sell for between $8,000 US and $12,000 US, but in 2005 a green-covered first edition went for $24,000. At the time, that was the fifth first edition to go up for auction in 30 years.

This sale is part of an auction that includes 299 books and manuscripts.

The following day, an article entitled “Green Gables First Edition Sells for More Than $8,000” appeared in the Globe and Mail (6 December 2008, p. R14):

Green Gables first edition sells for more than $8,000 [Globe and Mail, 6 December 2008, R14]

Toronto—A rare first edition of the original 1908 Anne of Green Gables by Canada’s L.M. Montgomery sold at auction in New York yesterday for $8,125 (U.S.), including buyer’s premium. The clothbound edition, offered without the even-rarer dust jacket, went into bidding with a presale estimate of $8,000-$12,000.

What made the Christie’s consignment something of a rarity was its tan cover. Most first editions—it’s believed Montgomery’s Boston-based publisher printed no more than 7,000 copies in spring, 1908—have a green binding. The record for a first-edition Anne sold at auction is $24,000, set by Sotheby’s New York in 2005. That book was consigned by a collector in Victoria. (James Adams)

Centenary News

Meghan O’Rourke’s article “Anne of 100 Candles” appeared on Slate on 8 July.

Her temper and her gaffes provide fodder for those village members who dislike having a child of “uncertain parentage” around. Yet with time, Anne wins nearly everyone over, as her grace, curiosity, and haplessness catalyze the bloodless community. She enables adults to reconnect with the childish soul within.

Ramin Setoodeh’s article “It’s Still Not Easy Being Green: Anne of Green Gables Turns 100 This Year but She’s the Most Modern Girl in the Bookstores” appeared in the 28 July issue of Newsweek.

Daphne Gordon’s “Anne of Green Gables Turns 100,” Bruce DeMara’s “The Once and Future Anne Shirley,” and Kelly Toughill’s “Gentle Island” appeared in the Toronto Star on 26 January.

Sarah Weinman’s “Anne’s Evergreen Gables” appeared in the Guardian on 4 February.

Calls for Papers

L.M. Montgomery—Writer of the World (conference, Uppsala University, Sweden, 20–23 August 2009)

Gabriella Åhmansson and Åsa Warnqvist, Conference coordinators

L.M. Montgomery’s world famous novel Anne of Green Gables has continued to attract readers from all over the world for a century. Our centenary conference is a tribute to all of those who have made 100 years of readership possible.

The main theme of the conference is “Reading Response.” We will explore reading experiences of Anne of Green Gables and other works by L.M. Montgomery. One section will be dedicated to Anne of Green Gables in Sweden. We also accept open proposals for papers on Montgomery’s works.

We invite you to send in one-page proposals for papers, together with a short biographical note.

L.M. Montgomery and the Matter of Nature (conference, University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, June 2010)

Benjamin Lefebvre and Jean Mitchell, Conference co-chairs

In 2010 we invite you to consider L.M. Montgomery and the matter of nature. While multiple romanticisms have informed L.M. Montgomery’s passionate views of nature, her descriptions were complex as she wrote both of and for nature. What are the effects of the representations and images of nature that are crafted and circulated in the fiction of Montgomery, and in that of other writers of literature (especially for children and youth)? How do her narrations of nature shape children and adults within and across cultures? How do seasonality and place function in her life writing? And how do particular constructions of nature work in fiction, across such differences as gender, race, culture, and class? What are the cultural and historical contingencies surrounding nature in Montgomery’s work?

In recent years, the matter of “nature” itself has been the subject of much-contested debate and theoretical innovation across disciplines. Nature situates binary relationships that are often represented as hierarchical and oppositional. These include nature and culture, child and adult, animal and human, male and female, reason and emotion, mind and body, modern and traditional, raw and cooked, domestic and wild, urban and rural—among others. How might any of these formulations be examined and challenged (or not) in the context of Montgomery’s work? What does it mean to consider Montgomery as a “green” writer (Doody) or as a proto-ecofeminist (Holmes)? What do Montgomery’s provocative readings of nature offer us at a time of environmental crises and ecological preoccupations?

Please send one-page abstracts and short biographical sketches by June 30, 2009, to: L.M. Montgomery Institute, University of Prince Edward Island, 550 University Avenue, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3 Canada. Email: lmminst@upei.ca.

Anne of Green Gables: New Directions at 100 (collection of essays)

Irene Gammel and Benjamin Lefebvre, editors

Since its first publication in 1908, L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables has enjoyed a remarkable success with a worldwide following of readers and an energetic scholarly engagement over the past two decades. As the novel enters the second centennial of its publication, the University of Toronto Press is interested in publishing a collection of scholarly essays dedicated to the topic Anne of Green Gables: New Directions. The editors are interested in papers related to any aspect of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne, including its inspirations, its sequels, and its cultural impact. Innovative approaches including interdisciplinary perspectives that make us see Anne and the world of Avonlea in new ways are particularly encouraged. Papers should engage with relevant scholarship, and should be written in lively and accessible prose. Illustrations and formerly unpublished material are particularly welcomed. Twenty-five-page papers including all endnotes and bibliography should be accompanied by a bio-sketch and abstract.

Submission format requirements: Papers should be double-spaced throughout, using Times New Roman 12-point font, with all notes at the end, and a separate file for the works cited. All files should be in Microsoft Word format. File names should follow this principle: lastname-paper (e.g., smith-paper) and lastname-bib (e.g., smith-bib) for the works cited. Submitters should also submit a well formulated 100-word abstract (lastname-abstract) and a 50-word bio-sketch (lastname-bio). Deadline: August 15, 2008. Early submissions are encouraged.

The Idea of “Classic” (collection of essays)

The L.M. Montgomery Institute is seeking submissions for a proposed publication to be based on the theme of “classic” as discussed at the eighth biennial international Montgomery conference, “L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables and the Idea of ‘Classic.’”

Submission deadline is 1 September 2008, but early submission is encouraged. Questions concerning the publication may be directed to the L.M. Montgomery Institute.

The Death of L.M. Montgomery

On 20 September 2008, I shared the news that an article entitled “The Heartbreaking Truth about Anne’s Creator,” written by Kate Macdonald Butler (Montgomery’s granddaughter), had appeared in that day’s Globe and Mail (pp. F1, F6):

Despite her great success, it is known that she suffered from depression, that she was isolated, sad and filled with worry and dread for much of her life. But our family has never spoken publicly about the extent of her illness.

What has never been revealed is that L.M. Montgomery took her own life at the age of 67 through a drug overdose.

Four days later, on 24 October 2008, an article on the front page of the Globe and Mail entitled “Is This Lucy Maud’s Suicide Note?” reproduced the text of the scrap of paper found on Montgomery’s bedside the afternoon she died:

This copy is unfinished and never will be. It is in a terrible state because I made it when I had begun to suffer my terrible breakdown of 1940. It must end here. If any publishers wish to publish extracts from it under the terms of my will they must stop here. The tenth volume can never be copied and must not be made public during my lifetime. Parts of it are too terrible and would hurt people. I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best.

A follow-up article by James Adams entitled “Lucy Maud Suffered ‘Unbearable Psychological Pain’” included extracts from an email interview with Mary Henley Rubio. Rubio’s biography, Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings, scheduled for publication the next month by Doubleday Canada but ended up appearing three weeks ahead of schedule.

In Memoriam

Elizabeth Mawson (1927–2008)

Canadian stage actor Elizabeth Mawson died on 16 February at the age of 81. Among numerous critically acclaimed stage roles, she played Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables: The Musical at the Confederation Centre for the Arts in Charlottetown between 1971 and 2003. For more information about her life and her career, see Patricia Wardrop’s article on Elizabeth Mawson in The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Our Anniversary

And finally, on 9 July, a blog post entitled “Our Anniversary” highlighted the fact that the L.M. Montgomery Research Group was celebrating its tenth anniversary that summer:

Jason and Yuka and I started the initial discussion list at the University of Toronto shortly after the Message in a Bottle conference at UPEI in June 1998. A decade later, with a membership of thirty-eight people from around the world, the discussion list continues to go strong, and we’re very pleased with the virtual community of scholars and researchers that has developed. And with the new LMMRG website, launched in 2006, we continue to explore new ways to disseminate research.

But with this milestone comes a significant change: Jason and Yuka are now stepping down as co-chairs of the LMMRG, after a decade of service. Jason is leaving to devote all his energies on a number of research projects in early childhood education at Ryerson University, and Yuka, Osborne Collections Assistant at the Toronto Public Library, will now join the advisory board. I want to thank Jason and Yuka publicly for everything they’ve done (and will continue to do) for this community, which would not exist without their tenacity and hard work. I also look forward to the next ten years of scholarly research.

Image Credit

The featured image on this page consists of a detail from the cover of Elizabeth Waterston’s book Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery, published by Oxford University Press in 2008. The painting, entitled “Northport Pier,” is by Anne Gallant of Kensington, PE.

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