L. M. Montgomery Literary Icon

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Lucy Maud Montgomery—called Maud by friends and family—is born on November 30, 1874 in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island. Her mother passes away just 21 months after Montgomery’s birth, so she is raised by her maternal grandparents in Cavendish.
As a teenager, Montgomery spends a year in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan living with her father and stepmother. During this time, her first publication (a poem titled “On Cape Le Force”) appears in the Charlottetown Daily Patriot, and three of her essays are published in other newspapers.
Montgomery graduates with a Teacher’s License from Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown. To help pay for her undergraduate studies in English Literature at Dalhousie University, she teaches at rural schoolhouses. She was one of the few women of her time to seek post-secondary education.
When her maternal grandfather dies in 1898, Montgomery stops teaching and returns home to Cavendish to care for her grandmother. In 1901, she left home for a brief period to take a job as a proofreader at the Halifax Daily Echo, where she also writes her own column (under the pen name “Cynthia”—one of many pseudonyms she used).
In 1907, Montgomery signs a contract for the publication of Anne of Green Gables, a contract that will change the course of her career. Officially published in June of 1908, Anne of Green Gables goes through six printings by December of that year. At this point in her life, Montgomery has already written and published some 200 short stories and over 100 poems.
After her grandmother passes away in 1911, Montgomery marries Reverend Ewan Macdonald after being secretly engaged to him for five years. They honeymoon in England and Scotland, eventually settling down in Leaskdale, Ontario. By now, she has published four novels, about 400 poems, over 400 short stories, and 52 other sketches and essays. At Leaskdale, she publishes an additional seven novels and more short stories and poetry.
Montgomery gives birth to three sons: Chester Cameron Macdonald is born in 1912, her second son, Hugh, is stillborn in 1914, and her third son Ewan Stuart Macdonald is born in 1915.
Montgomery enters a series of lawsuits and appeals with her first publisher over the unauthorized publication of Further Chronicles of Avonlea. Although eventually resolved in Montgomery’s favour in 1928, the case makes it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Montgomery and her family move to Norval, Ontario in 1926 (Montgomery’s first home with electricity), before retiring in 1935 to the Swansea area of Toronto. She named her Toronto house “Journey’s End” and, fittingly, it was her last place of residence.
The Canadian government declares Green Gables and the surrounding Cavendish area a national park. Montgomery is involved in its development and visits the park once before her death.
Montgomery passes away on April 24, 1942 in Toronto. Though experiencing depression and ill health, she mails a final collection of Anne-related sketches and poems, The Blythes Are Quoted, to her publisher the day before she died. This collection is not published in its entirety until 2009. After lying in state at Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery is laid to rest in the Cavendish cemetery—a final return to the island she so cherished.
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