Anne’s House of Dreams
By Lucy Maud Montgomery
“Thanks be, I’m done with geometry, learning or teaching it,” said Anne Shirley, a trifle vindictively, as she thumped a somewhat battered volume of Euclid into a big chest of books, banged the lid in triumph, and sat down upon it, looking at Diana Wright across the Green Gables garret, with gray eyes that were like a morning sky.
The garret was a shadowy, suggestive, delightful place, as all garrets should be. Through the open window, by which Anne sat, blew the sweet, scented, sun-warm air of the August afternoon; outside, poplar boughs rustled and tossed in the wind; beyond them were the woods, where Lover’s Lane wound its enchanted path and the old apple orchard which still bore its rosy harvests munificently. And, overall, there was a great mountain range of snowy clouds in the blue southern sky. Through the other window was glimpsed a distant, white-capped, blue sea—the beautiful St. Lawrence Gulf, on which floats, like a jewel, Abegweit, whose softer, sweeter Indian name has long been forsaken for the more prosaic one of Prince Edward Island.
Diana Wright, three years older than when we last saw her, had grown somewhat matronly in the intervening time. But her eyes were as black and brilliant, her cheeks as rosy, and her dimples as enchanting, as in the long-ago days when she and Anne Shirley had vowed eternal friendship in the garden at Orchard Slope. In her arms, she held a small, sleeping, black-curled creature, who for two happy years had been known to the world of Avonlea as “Small Anne Cordelia.” Avonlea folks knew why Diana had called her Anne, of course, but Avonlea folks were puzzled by Cordelia. There had never been a Cordelia in the Wright or Barry connections. Mrs. Harmon Andrews said she supposed Diana had found the name in some trashy novel, and wondered that Fred hadn’t more sense than to allow it. But Diana and Anne smiled at each other. They knew how Small Anne Cordelia had come by her name.
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Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery OBE (November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942), published as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a collection of novels, essays, short stories, and poetry beginning in 1908 with Anne of Green Gables. She published 20 novels as well as 530 short stories, 500 poems, and 30 essays. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success; the title character, orphan Anne Shirley, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. Most of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island, and those locations within Canada’s smallest province became a literary landmark and popular tourist site – namely Green Gables farm, the genesis of Prince Edward Island National Park. She was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1935.
Montgomery’s work, diaries, and letters have been read and studied by scholars and readers worldwide. The L. M. Montgomery Institute, University of Prince Edward Island, is responsible for the scholarly inquiry into the life, works, culture, and influence of L. M. Montgomery.
Early life and education
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in New London on Prince Edward Island, Canada, on November 30, 1874. Her mother, Clara Woolner Montgomery (1853-1876), known as “Tillie”, died of tuberculosis (TB) when Maud was 21 months old. Stricken with grief, her father, Hugh John Montgomery (1841-1900), placed Maud in her maternal grandparents’ custody, though he remained in the vicinity. When Maud was seven, her father moved to Prince Albert, North-West Territories (now Prince Albert, Saskatchewan). From then on Maud was raised by her grandparents, Alexander Marquis Macneill and Lucy Woolner Macneill, in the community of Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
Montgomery’s early life in Cavendish was very lonely. Despite having relatives nearby, much of her childhood was spent alone. She created imaginary friends and worlds to cope with her loneliness, and Montgomery credited this time of her life with developing her creativity. Her imaginary friends were named Katie Maurice and Lucy Gray and lived in the “fairy room” behind the bookcase in the drawing room. During a church service, Montgomery asked her aunt where her dead mother was, leading her to point upwards. Montgomery saw a trap door in the church’s ceiling, which led her to wonder why the minister did not just get a ladder to retrieve her mother from the church’s ceiling.
In 1887, at age 13, Montgomery wrote in her diary that she had “early dreams of future fame.” She submitted a poem for publication, writing, “I saw myself the wonder of my schoolmates— a little local celebrity.” Upon rejection, Montgomery wrote, “Tears of disappointment would come despite me, as I crept away to hide the poor crumpled manuscript in the depths of my trunk.” She later wrote, “Down, deep down under all the discouragement and rebuff, I knew I would ‘arrive’ someday.”
After completing her education in Cavendish, Montgomery spent one year (1890) in Prince Albert with her father and her stepmother, Mary Ann McRae (1863-1910), who had married in 1887. While she was in Prince Albert, Montgomery’s first work, a poem titled “On Cape LeForce,” was published in the Charlottetown paper The Daily Patriot. She was as excited about this as she was about her return to Prince Edward Island in 1891. Before returning to Cavendish, Montgomery had another article published in the newspaper, describing her visit to a First Nations camp on the Great Plains. She often saw Blackfeet and Plains Cree in Prince Albert, writing that she saw many Indians on the Prairies who were much more handsome than those she had seen in the Maritimes.
Montgomery’s return to Cavendish was a great relief to her. Her time in Prince Albert was unhappy, for she did not get along with her stepmother. According to Montgomery, her father’s marriage was not a happy one.
Lucy Maud Montgomery
