L.M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables

Abstract

In August 1907, a few months after Anne of Green Gables had been accepted for publication, Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote joyfully in her Journal:

Well, I’ve written my book. The dream dreamed years ago in that old brown desk in school has come true at last after years of toil and struggle. And the realization is sweet — almost as sweet as the dream!¹

The novel, which appeared in June 1908, was, like most of the other books discussed in this study, an overnight success, despite its modest beginnings. As Montgomery herself explains:

Two years ago in the spring of 1905 I was looking over [my] notebook in search of some suitable idea for a short serial I wanted to write for a certain Sunday School paper and I found a faded entry, written ten years before:- “Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent them.” I thought this would do. I began to block out chapters, devise incidents and “brood up” my heroine… Then the thought came, “Write a book about her.” (I, 330)