1 November 2024 Susannah

L.M. Montgomery 150th Birthday Anniversary

L.M. Montgomery 150th birthday

This month brings a special literary anniversary which means a great deal to me personally. L.M. Montgomery, author of the Anne of Green Gables series and the Emily series, has her 150th birthday on 30 November. I think I was about seven when my mother gave me a copy of Anne of Green Gables and read it aloud to me. Succeeding birthdays saw my collection of her books growing and, until I discovered Jane Austen, no author meant so much to me. I read and reread until I knew chunks off by heart. Gilbert Blythe with his hazel eyes was my first great love, and I still turn often to the books for comfort and pleasure.

Someone had sent my mother a postcard of the Green Gables house on Prince Edward Island, and I kept that pinned up in my room for years, longing to see the original for myself.

When I finally took a tour group to the island, it was a deeply emotional experience for me – to see the Lake of Shining Waters, to walk along Lovers’ Lane, and to see Anne’s gable room where hangs a dress with puffed sleeves, was almost too much for me and my eyes kept filling with tears.

As an adult I have loved reading biographies about Maud (she hated her first name of Lucy and was always Maud) although sadly her life never lived up to her youthful dreams and there was no Gilbert to fulfil her romantic dreams. There are also some really excellent critical books about her fiction and world – The Fragrance of Sweet-Grass: L.M. Montgomery’s Heroines and the Pursuit of Romance by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly, Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery by Elizabeth Waterston, and Looking for Anne by Irene Gammel, are just a few examples.

Montgomery’s books have hugely enriched my life, and so of course I want to mark this anniversary with a party on the actual day of her birthday, Saturday 30 November, from 3-5pm.

It’s to be an online party, so I can share the pleasure with Anne fans far and near.

The event will include my illustrated talk on Montgomery’s sad life, travelling in her footsteps, and discussing her writings. I’ll have some fun quiz questions and an online jigsaw to complete. Scholar, Sarah Emsley will join us via Prince Edward Island to report on celebrations in Canada, and various “Anne-friends” will each briefly discuss their own favourites of her works (some of the choices might surprise you).

We’ll record the event, so if you can’t join in on the day, or the time doesn’t work for you, then you can still watch and celebrate this important literary anniversary whenever you like.

It isn’t until the end of November, so you even have time for some glorious rereading before the birth date – open your favourite and travel again to Prince Edward Island, laugh over Anne and the amethyst brooch and the hair turned green, and feel outrage with the immortal Anne when Gilbert calls her ‘Carrots’. I plan to try some of the audio versions of the novels, as I’ve never listened to them before, just read from my very tattered and adored copies. But whichever volume you pick up, I hope you have fun rediscovering Canada’s greatest writer in preparation for our virtual party.

So I invite you to my party, held on the actual day of her birthday, Saturday 30 November, from 3-5pm. You can pour yourself a raspberry cordial (or sparkling rosé), enjoy a cake without liniment, wear your amethyst brooch, or even dye your hair red (or green) but do help me celebrate the birth of the woman who gave us the immortal red-haired Anne.

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Do you love L.M. Montgomery’s books? Let me know by leaving a comment.

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Images-
L.M. Montgomery, 1908; Anne Wallpaper, https://browsecat.art/tv-shows/anne-e-wallpapers
“Green Gables”, Cavendish, Prince Edward Island National Park, https://www.peipostcards.ca/collection/green-gables-cavendish-prince-edward-island-national-park-1028/
The Annotated Anne of Green Gables, https://amzn.to/3Nv8BZL

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