The 6 August 2007 issue of Maclean’s includes Katie Engelhart’s article titled “Will the real Anne please stand up? In celebration of the 100th anniversary of ‘Anne of Green Gables’: duelling prequels.”
Also, Bertrand Russell had a few choice things to say about the Penguin prequel in his “Burn the Prequel” (14 Dec. 2006) entry on his blog.
Thanks to Beth C. for alerting us to the Maclean’s article.
From CBC website:
Elaine Campbell, a co-creator of the longest running musical in Canadian history, Anne of Green Gables, died Friday in Charlottetown.
Campbell was one of the lyricists for the musical and part of the team — consisting of her husband, Norman Campbell, Don Harron, Mavor Moore and Alan Lund — that brought the internationally famous L.M. Montgomery book to Charlottetown’s Confederation Centre of the Arts in the 1960s. The show is now in its 43rd year.
Harron, the only surviving member of the creative team, said Elaine Campbell shaped the character of Anne.
“She brought a sensitivity. Norman and I were showoffs and Elaine was not. And she brought a real sense of the inner Anne,” he said. “She doesn’t get enough credit for what she did.”
Campbell, who was born in northern Ontario in 1925, spent her summers in Prince Edward Island and her winters in Toronto.
She wrote lyrics for three other musicals and contributed to specials for CBC Television, Rideau Hall and two Royal galas. She also established an endowment fund to the Confederation Centre in her husband’s name.
Her connection with Prince Edward Island, and the festival, was maintained for over 40 years.
“She’s never missed an opening that I know of in terms of the opening of the summer festival,” said Wayne Hambly, chair of the board of the Confederation Centre.
“Every year she comes down from Toronto to stay at their summer home. She brings to the centre a great level of excitement and a great level of pride in the accomplishments of the cast and crew.”
Campbell is best-known as a writer for the theatre and patron of the arts.
However, she also served with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War, spent time on the board of the National Ballet of Canada and was a Jane Austin scholar.
She was an avid traveller. Her final trip, in the last year of her life, was to Libya.
Campbell leaves five children and one grandchild. There will be a private celebration of her life held on P.E.I. A public event will take place later in Toronto.
Finally, it looks like Cavendish is broadening its range of tourist attractions, although probably not in ways that Montgomery would have predicted. Click here to find out what I’m talking about.
An article on the CBC website reports that the L.M. Montgomery Institute is experiencing financial difficulties. It can be found here.
Yuka got a GOOGLE alert about the Six String Nation Guitar and LMM, and asked me to get more info.
For those of you who don’t know about the guitar (from Six String Nation):
The Six String Nation is a movement to connect people from all regions of Canada through music and by sharing our icons, images and stories.
The Six String Nation guitar is at the heart of the movement. The guitar is made of more than 60 pieces that are significant aspects of history or culture from across the country.
The media kit adds:
PEI – Cavendish Wood from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s family house & post office. Many “Green Gables” pilgrims to PEI confuse the author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, with her fictional “Anne”. Lucy Maud was born on the same day as Winston Churchill and raised by her maternal grandparents, Alexander Marquis Macneill and Lucy Woolner Macneill in Cavendish. They were postmasters of the town. Maud as she was known worked in the office – often intercepting her own publishers rejection notices of her early pre-Anne of Green Gables stories before the town got wind. This is a piece of wood from that house/post office.
Of course, Yuka wonders where the wood came from, since the house was taken down around 1920:
I had a letter from Cavendish to-day in which the writer said that Uncle John was tearing down the old house. It gave me a nasty pang. yet it might as well be–it was falling into ruin. Yet–that dear, old beloved spot–my old room–to go into nothingness. (Friday April 23, 1920; Selected Journals, Vol. II)
So, it has NOT gone into nothingness after all! Anyone know who might have donated the bit of the house itself?
A new animated series based on Emily of New Moon is coming to Japanese television! The official website can be found here.
Update from Yuka:
I looked at the web site of Emily animation. It will be on the
national TV station NHK’s educational channel. They have total 26
episodes; 25 min each (starting 7:25 am).April 7 (Sat) Wind girl
April 14 (Sat) Pride of the Murrays
April 21 (Sat) A queer/strange child Ilse
April 28 (Sat) Sketche(s) of the four (Emily, Ilse, Teddy, Perry)I found the following site giving you a bit more information on the
animation:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=7475
Responding to the question of whether it will be dubbed into English, Yuka adds:
Last year, four of the animation staff came to visit me at the
Osborne. They said that they are planning to sell the broadcast right
to foreign countries. Japanese animations are quite popular in south
eastern countries and European countries too. So it must happen
sooner or later. But I didn’t find out when.Professor Akamatsu, has been much more active consulting on the
project, so perhaps she will know when it gets translated before I
do. But nothing’s clear at the moment.
It’s worth noting that the 1979 animated series Akage no An has never (at least to my knowledge) been dubbed into English, although I do remember seeing a few episodes in French while growing up in Québec in the 1980s.
Yuka writes:
Hello everyone,
I’m shocked to learn that Canadian feminist icon Doris Anderson
passed away on the 2nd at St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto. She was
an influential editor for Chatelaine magazine from 1957 to 77.I met & talked with her only once at her house at Mollie Gillen’s
90th birthday party in 1998. (You can read my article “In Celebration
of Mollie Gillen’s 90th Birthday” at http://yukazine.com/lmm/e/
Mollie.ATC26.98.99.html)Mollie often told me that because Doris asked her to write an article
on LMM, Mollie started to read LMM’s books and that eventually Mollie
located the now famous bunch of letters written by LMM to Mr
Macmillan in Scotland.“When she (Anderson) took it (Chatelaine) over, it had a circulation
of 480,000. Within a decade it was being read by 1.8 million
women–’One of every three in Canada’ as she claims.” (Rebel
daughter’s anger simmers by Allan Fotheringham. The Calgary Sunday
Sun, Sept. 29, 1996)So, Mollie’s article on LMM appeared in such a popular magazine and
received high praise from the readers. Based on the short article,
Mollie developed a biography of LMM, The Wheel of Things which was
published in 1975.I saw Doris at the LMM conference in 94 and learned that Doris was a
friend of Adrian Clarkson (former Governor General) who is a fan of
LMM and made a brilliant speech at the conference. The speech is
published in Gammel and Epperly’s “L.M. Montgomery and Canadian
Culture” (1999).If Doris didn’t pay attention to LMM in the 70s, Mollie would not
have thought about writing the biography, let alone reading LMM’s
books. I learned a life of LMM through “The wheel of things”.To me, as an enthusiast of LMM, I would like to thank Doris Anderson
sincerely.More info here: http://tinyurl.com/3byplb
Regards,
yuka kajihara
http://yukazine.com
I would like to add that there is a substantial article about Doris Anderson in today’s Globe and Mail. It’s available at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070302.wdorisandersonobit0302/BNStory/Entertainment/home