Canadian writer, who became famous for her juvenile books, especially ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (1908), in which the main character is a spirited, orphan girl, who finds home with an elderly brother and sister. Montgomery produced more than 20 novels and short-story collection. Several publishers rejected Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery was 34 when it was finally accepted.

"I'm pretty hungry this morning," she announced, as she slipped into the chair Marilla placed for her. "The world doesn't seem such a howling wilderness as it did last night. I'm so glad it's a sunshiny morning. But I like rainy mornings real well too. All sorts of mornings are interesting, don't you think? You don't know what's going to happen through the day, and there's so much scope for imagination."
(from Anne of Green Gables)

L.M. Montgomery was born at Clifton (now New London), Prince Edward Island. When she was two, her mother died. Her merchant father, remarried, moved away, and her maternal grandparents in Cavendish raised her. The place was isolated and her childhood was not so happy: she grew up in an atmosphere of strict discipline and punishments for slight reasons. She joined her father briefly in Prince Albert, but then returned to Prince Edward Island.

At an early age Montgomery read widely. She started to write in school and had her first poem published in a local paper at the age of fifteen. In 1895 Montgomery qualified for a teacher's licence at Prince Wales College, Charlottetown. During the 1890s she worked as a teacher in Bideford and at Lower Bedeque, both on Prince Edward Island.

In 1895-96 Montgomery studied literature at Dalhousie University, Halifax. She returned to Cavendish to take care of her grandmother and worked at a local post office. After her grandmother died, Montgomery married the Presbyterian minister Ewan MacDonald in 1911, and moved with him to rural Ontario. While caring for her grandmother, she wrote the first book of the Anne series. It drew on her girlhood experiences. The idea was based on a notebook entry from 1904: 'Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent them.'

Anne of Green Gables captured the struggles and dreams of childhood. The story of the talkative, red-haired orphan, gained an immediate popularity. The sequels followed Anne's life from childhood to adulthood and raising a family. The initial volume has been filmed several times, adapted to stage and translated into some 40 languages.

"It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?"
(from Anne of Green Gables)

Montgomery's success was shadowed by her husband's bouts of melancholy and a nine-year dispute with her publisher. In 1925 the family moved to Norval, near Toronto, and then in 1935, after her husband's retirement, to Toronto. During the late 1930s Montgomery suffered a breakdown, and remained despondent until her death on April 24, 1942.

Montgomery wrote several collections of stories and two books for adults. His other series characters include Emily, who appeared in three novels, and Pat, who was in two novels. At her death she left 10 volumes of unpublished personal diaries (1889-1942), whose publication began in 1985.

Montgomery's heroines are frequently motherless, but adventurous, imaginative and determined. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables is a redheaded orphan, whose rebellious energy is connected to her red hair. Anne's development focuses on the conflict between imagination and propriety, and concludes with the ascendancy of decorum and practicality, a theme that its seven sequels continue to develop.

For further reading: Lucy Maud Montgomery Album by Kevin McCabe and Alexandra Heilbron (1999); Anne's World, Maud's World: The Sacred Sites of L.M. Montgomery by Nancy Rootland ( 1998); World Authors 1900-1950, ed. by Martin Seymour-Smith and Andrew C. Kimmens (1996); L.M. Montgomery, ed. by J.R. Sorfleet (1976); The Wheel of Things by M. Gillen (1975); The Years Before Anne by F.W.P. Bolger (1974); The Story of L.M. Montgomery by H.M. Ridley (1956) - Museums: Anne of Green Gables Museum, Box 491, Kensington, Prince Edward Island - House where L.M. Montgomery spent much of her childhood. - Green Gables, Cavendish, Prince Edward Island - Montgomery's neighbour's house, which is 'Green Gables' in her novels. - SEE ALSO: Astrid Lindgren and her unconventional children's book character Pippi Longstockings; see also: Louisa Alcott

• ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, 1908 - film 1934, dir. George Nicholls Jnr, starring Anne Shirley (Dawm O'Day, who adopted the name of her character); Anne of Windy Willows, with the same starts and production team, followed in 1940 - musical versions, once on Broadway and once in London in 1969
• ANNE OF AVONLEA, 1909
• KILMENY OF THE ORCHARD, 1910
• THE STORY GIRL, 1911
• THE GOLDEN ROAD, 1913
• ANNE OF THE ISLAND, 1915
• THE WATCHMAN, 1916
• ANNE'S HOUSE OF DREAMS, 1917
• RAINBOW VALLEY, 1919
• FURTHER CHRONICLES OF AVONLEA, 1920
• RILLA OF INGLESIDE, 1921
• EMILY OF NEW MOON, 1923
• EMILY CLIMBS, 1924
• THE BLUE CASTLE, 1926
• EMILY'S QUEST, 1927
• MAGIC FOR MARIGOLD, 1929
• A TANGLED WEB, 1931
• PAT OF SILVER BUSH, 1933
• COURAGEOUS WOMEN, 1934
• MISTRESS PAT, 1935
• ANNE OF WINDY POPLARS, 1936
• JANE OF LANTERN HILL, 1937 - Jane Victoria.
• ANNE OF INGLESIDE, 1939
• THE GREEN GABLE LETTERS, 1960
• THE ROAD TO YESTERDAY, 1974
• THE ALPINE PATH: THE STORY OF MY CAREER, 1974
• THE DOCTOR'S SWEETHEART, 1979
• MY DEAR MR. M., 1980
• SPIRIT OF PLACE, 1982
• THE SELECTED JOURNALS OF L.M. MONTGOMERY, 1985-87 (2 vols.)
• THE SELECTED JOURNALS OF L.M. MONTGOMERY: 1910-21, 1988
• THE POETRY OF LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY, 1987
• AKIN TO ANNE, 1988
• ALONG THE SHORE, 1989
• THE SELECTED JOURNALS OF L.M. MONTGOMERY: 1921-29, 1993
• AFTER MANY DAYS, 1995
• THE SELECTED JOURNALS OF L.M. MONTGOMERY: 1929-1935, 1999