2024 is L.M. Montgomery’s 150th birthday! The L.M. Montgomery Institute (LMMI) at the University of Prince Edward Island is celebrating with 150 tributes – celebratory statements or greetings – that reflect upon personal connections to Montgomery or on an aspect of her life, work, or legacy.
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Help to celebrate National Booklovers Day on August 9 by sharing your love of reading. This week Abby Chandler, E. Holly Pike, Rebecca J. Thompson, and Margaret Steffler share their love of Montgomery’s books.
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Abby Chandler on first meeting Montgomery
I first met L.M. Montgomery and Anne Shirley when I was six. The library at the high school where my father worked had a collection of children’s books. I would sit on the floor and read an illustrated edition of Anne of Green Gables whose endpapers showed Anne on a hill gazing down on Green Gables. We moved the following year, and I was delighted to find all the Anne books at the library in my new town. Years later, I began trying to identify that illustrated copy of Anne of Green Gables and came across it in an essay by Lori Klein in the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies. I found my own copy and was reminded of how the book had introduced me not only to Anne but to Montgomery’s broader visual world, one that remains as important to me now as it did then.
Thank you, Maud!
Abby Chandler is writing a book about L.M. Montgomery and gardens in her life and fiction. She teaches history at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.
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E. Holly Pike on reading hypertext
Whenever I pick up one of L.M. Montgomery’s novels now, whether I’m reading for pleasure or for research, I am reading hypertext. Some of that is scholarly cross-referencing, of course. But as well, in each book some memory of an earlier reading or interaction will be triggered: my mother’s copy of Pat of Silver Bush; the student who saw A Tangled Web in my office bookcase and asked to borrow it because it was the only one she hadn’t read; the colleague who confessed that The Blue Castle was her favourite novel of all time; the friend who wanted me along on her bucket list trip to Green Gables; my toddler granddaughter’s delight in the graphic novel version of Anne of Green Gables. The texts are rich in themselves, but my experiences with others through Montgomery’s works provide another level of enrichment that is completely embedded in my reading.
E. Holly Pike is a lifelong Montgomery fan and retired faculty member of Grenfell Campus, Memorial University.
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Rebecca J. Thompson on reading and rereading Montgomery’s books
I don’t remember the first time I read one of your books, but I remember reading them many times. I remember rereading the Emily trilogy over and over in my teens. I remember reading Jane of Lantern Hill aloud to my sisters. I remember falling in love over and over and crying over and over with the loss of favourite characters. I remember the many times I discovered a Kindred Spirit by learning they too loved your books. I remember being told I would end up hating whatever work I chose for my thesis and knowing it could never happen with one of your books (it didn’t). I remember discovering a whole world of people who are as fascinated with you and your characters as I am.
Thank you for all the wonderful memories past and to come. Happy 150th, Maud!
Rebecca J. Thompson is an Academic Librarian and Montgomery scholar who loves that she doesn't have to choose between her two academic passions.
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Margaret Steffler on reading Montgomery through memory
I recall reading Montgomery at specific times and in particular places. I remember reading Anne of Avonlea with my best friend in her back yard after our grade 5 teacher had read Anne of Green Gables aloud to the class. We were hooked. I reread Anne of Green Gables and Anne’s House of Dreams in a residence room at Carleton University when I was preparing to go to Nigeria as a CUSO teacher. I read Volume I of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery while watching my young daughter play at a park. In more recent years I have gone directly to those passages that sustain me. I marvel at how deeply the words on the page connect writer and reader. I am grateful for the solitary reading, for the vibrant community of readers I have met along the way, and for friendships strengthened by a shared love of Montgomery.
Margaret Steffler is professor emerita, Department of English Literature, Trent University.
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Next week we will continue our celebration of L.M. Montgomery’s global impact.