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L.M. Montgomery was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success. The central character, Anne, an orphaned girl, made Montgomery famous in her lifetime and gave her an international following. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 500 short stories and poems.
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. She was baptized May 2, 1875. [1] Her mother, Clara Woolner MacNeill Montgomery, died of tuberculosis when Maud was 21 months old. Stricken with grief over his wife’s death, Hugh John Montgomery gave custody over to Montgomery’s maternal grandparents. They were Alexander McNeill and his wife Lucy Ann Woolner McNeill.[2] Alexander was the Postmaster of Cavendish town on Prince Edward Island. Lucy Maud attended school in Cavendish and was an exemplary student.
Starting in 1881, Maud's father spent time in western Canada and in 1884 he moved permanently to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. He married a second time and he and his wife Mary Ann McRae had four children, Kate (1888), David Bruce (1891), Hugh Carlyle (Carl) 1893, and Ila May, Maud's half siblings.[3]
It wasn't until late 1890 that Lucy Maud joined the family in Prince Albert, where she was living at the time of the 1891 census.[4] When she got there, she attended high school, but was expected to tend to her new brother and subsequently was kept from school. It was during this year, however, that some of her poems and articles were first published. She returned to Prince Edward Island in August 1891.[3]
As she wrote more and was published, she studied for the entrance exams to Prince of Wales College. She ranked 5th out of 264 candidates. She entered college, finished two years of study in one year, and studied for her teacher's license. She taught and began studying English Literature at Dalhousie College.[3]
Alexander Macneill, Maud's grandfather, died in 1898. Maud gave up teaching to live with her grandmother.[5] She helped her grandmother as post mistress and became a newspaperwoman, proofreader, and columnist.[3] She lived with her grandmother until her death on March 10, 1911.[6]
It wasn't until 1905, that she began Anne of Green Gables. It was rejected by four publishers, and Lucy Maud put it away in a hatbox. In 1907, she revised the manuscript, submitted it, and it was accepted. When it was published in 1908, it went through six editions and sold 19,000 copies in six months.[3]
Lucy Maud was the wife of Reverend Ewen MacDonald, a Presbyterian minister.[7] They were married on July 5, 1911,[8] and moved to Leaskdale, Ontario, after their wedding.[9][10] They had three children: Chester Cameron, in 1912; a stillborn son, Hugh Alexander, 13 Aug. 1914; and Ewan Stuart, in 1915.[3][11]
In 1935 she became a member of the Literary and Artistic Institute of France and was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On April 24, 1942,[12] Lucy Maud Montgomery died of congestive heart failure in Toronto at the age of 67, one year before her husband's death. Her body lay in state at her girlhood home in Cavendish. It was the inspiration for Anne's fictional house "Green Gables." Since 1937, the house had become part of the Prince Edward Island Provincial Park. In 1943 Canada declared Lucy Maud Montgomery a person of national historic significance.
Lucy Maud Montgomery MacDonald is buried next to her husband in the Cavendish Community Cemetery, Cavendish, Queens County, Prince Edward Island, Canada.[13]
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Her novel Anne of Green Gables touched the hearts of many Canadian generations
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