L M Montgomery Part I

I still like some “children’s books” and I re read the ANNE series. Although it is overly sentimental, I still get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I also find the author very interesting. I’ve also read most of er adult novels and her other “girls” series, the Emily books but they never have the same charm for me as Anne. Lucy Maud (usually called Maud) Montgomery was born in Prince Edward Island in Canada in 1874. Her mother died when she was a baby and she was cared for by her grandparents, while her father went away out west to recover from his grief. He had run a general store but it didn't do well and he wanted to go out West to live. Her grandparents, who lived in Cavendish, were strict and “ultra-Victorian” so she had an unhappy childhood. Her grandfather, in particular, didn't seem to care for her at all. She was very lonely. Maud was a dreamer and made up stories. During her childhood her father remarried and she visited him out West. However, she didn’t get along with the stepmother and said that her father’s second marriage was not a happy one, though the couple had children. She received a good education, including going to University, which enabled her to become a teacher. She didn’t care much for teaching but it gave her time to write- and she began her career. She wrote short stories, and was able to secure a good income by so doing.  In time she also took on proof reading work for a newspaper. In 1898, she moved back to Cavendish to look after her elderly and widowed grandmother. She lived with the old lady until 1911, when her grandmother died. It was a difficult time for her. She wrote her first book, Anne of Green Gables, which became a runaway success. But she was lonely, still as her grandmother was not a companion for her. She had various admirers but she didn’t find anyone who was a suitable husband, and she was tied by her duty to her grandmother. This situation comes up quite often in her books, where a daughter is expected to look after an elderly mother, or where a domineering Mother (or occasionally father) makes it difficult for an adult daughter and sometimes a son to marry. In one of the Anne books, a lady called Janet finds that her admirer has not proposed to her, because his mother made him promise not to bring another woman into the house until she had died. In 1897, Maud accepted a proposal from Edwin Simpson, out of a desire for companionship and protection, since marriage was considered a necessary rite of passage for women. Even though she was earning her own living, she felt she needed the status of being a married woman. She has some of her child characters remark in her books that “