L. M. Montgomery (Lucy Maud Montgomery) Biography

Canadian novelist, born on Prince Edward Island, educated at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She was brought up by her maternal grandparents after her mother died when she was only two; these early experiences provided the basis for most of her fiction. Her first novel, Anne of Green Gables (1908), which brought her international fame, deals with the growing pains of its heroine, the spirited and impressionable Anne Shirley, Montgomery's most enduring creation; among numerous sequels are Anne of Avonlea (1909), Anne of the Island (1915), Anne's House of Dreams (1917), Rainbow Valley (1919), and Anne of Windy Poplars (1936), which follow the heroine into adulthood and life as a teacher, wife, and mother. In the short stories of The Story Girl (1911), Chronicles of Avonlea (1912), and Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920), the main focus shifts from Anne to a range of local characters. In the 1920s Montgomery wrote a trilogy of novels about another young female protagonist, Emily, which are generally considered more autobiographical than the ‘Anne’ books. A brief incursion into adult fiction in the novels The Blue Castle (1926) and A Tangled Web (1931) was followed by a return to adolescent subjects in the novels Pat of Silver Bush (1933) and Jane of Lantern Hill (1937).