L.M. Montgomery Research Group

By L.M. Montgomery

Edited by Cecily Devereux

Peterborough, ON: Broadview Editions, 2004

Synopsis

L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables is one of the best-known and most enduringly popular novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1908, it has never been out of print, and it continues, nearly a century after its first appearance, to appeal to new readers in many locations around the world. Anne of Green Gables is the story of how a little girl, adopted from an orphan asylum by a brother and sister seeking a boy to help them on their Prince Edward Island farm, grows to responsible young adulthood and, as she grows, brings light and life to her adoptive home. Although it is, as Montgomery described it in her journal, a “simple little tale,” it has nonetheless generated not only an international readership but, more recently, an increasing critical interest that focuses on the text’s engagement with social and political issues, its relation to Montgomery’s life and her other writing, and its circulation as a popular cultural commodity in Canada and elsewhere.

This Broadview edition is based on the first edition of Anne of Green Gables. It includes a critical introduction and a fascinating selection of contemporary documents, including contemporary review of the novel, other writings by L.M. Montgomery (stories, writings on gender and on writing), and excerpts from the “Pansy” books by Isabella Macdonald Alden.

Contents

Preface (7-8)

Acknowledgements (9-10)

Abbreviations (11)

Introduction (12-38)

Lucy Maud Montgomery: A Brief Chronology (39-41)

A Note on the Text (42-50)

Anne of Green Gables (51-334)

Appendix A: Selected Montgomery Stories before Anne

1. “Our Uncle Wheeler” (1898) (335-344)
2. “A New-Fashioned Flavoring” (1898) (344-356)
3. “Patty’s Mistake” (1902) (356-360)
4. “The Cake that Prissy Made” (1903) (360-364)

Appendix B: Montgomery on Writing: “The Way to Make a Book” (1915) (365-370)

Appendix C: Montgomery on Gender

1. “The Thirty Sweet Girl Graduates of Dalhousie University” (1896) (371-379)
2. “Famous Author and Simple Mother” (1925) (379-384)

Appendix D: The “Pansy” Novels of Isabella Macdonald Alden

1. From The Man of the House (1883) (385-387)
2. From Links in Rebecca’s Life (1878) (387-389)
3. From Ruth Erskine’s Crosses (1879) (389-390)

Appendix E: Selected Reviews

1. The New York Times Saturday Review of Books (18 July 1908) (391)
2. Montreal Daily Herald (21 July 1908) (392-392)
3. The Globe (15 August 1908) (392-393)
4. Outlook (22 August 1908) (393-394)
5. Canadian Magazine (November 1908) (394)
6. The Bookman (March-August 1909) (395)
7. Spectator (13 March 1909) (395-396)
8. The Mail and Empire (6 December 1913) (397)

Select Bibliography (398-400)

Reviews

Gammel, Irene. Review of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, Volume V: 1935-1942, edited by Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterston; Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, edited by Cecily Devereux. University of Toronto Quarterly 75, no. 1 (Winter 2006): 325-28.

Gillham, Virginia. Review of Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, edited by Cecily Devereux. In Canadian Book Review Annual 2004, edited by Joyce M. Wilson, 264. Toronto: CBRA, 2005.

Hammill, Faye. Review of Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, edited by Cecily Devereux. British Journal of Canadian Studies 19, no. 1 (2006): 137-38.

Lefebvre, Benjamin. “L.M. Montgomery Studies.” Review of Windows and Words: A Look at Canadian Children’s Literature in English, edited by Aïda Hudson and Susan-Ann Cooper; Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery, edited by Cecily Devereux; The Intimate Life of L.M. Montgomery, edited by Irene Gammel. Canadian Literature 189 (Summer 2006): 158-60.