Biography lm montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author with roots in Scotland. She lost her mother at an early age, and was raised by her maternal grandparents. She began to keep a diary and discovered at the age of 10 that she could write poetry. After college she became a teacher but kept writing. In her first novel, "Anne of Green Gables", was published after having been rejected by several publishers.

It was a success. She followed up with a whole series of novels about Anne, and many other stories as well, including a second series starting with "Emily of New Moon". The novels about Anne and Emily are semi-autobiographical and contain many of her own memories from the s and s on Prince Edward Island in Canada. Her novels have been published in over 40 languages, and Anne is known all over the world.

Mongomery's books are particularly popular in Japan. Spouse Ewan Macdonald July 5, - April 24, her death, 3 children. There she spent many happy days, playing with her cousins and visiting her paternal grandfather, Senator Donald Montgomery, who lived close to the Campbells. At the age of six, she began attending the one-room school near her grandparents' home in Cavendish.

She completed her early education there, with the exception of one year which she spent in Prince Albert with her father and his wife, Mary Anne McRae. In September ofshe returned to Cavendish, too late to go to school that year, but she completed grade ten in The following yearshe studied for a teacher's license at Prince of Wales College, completing the two-year course in one year and graduating with honours.

Biography lm montgomery: Lucy Maud Montgomery is

During her brief teaching career, Montgomery taught at three Island schools: Bideford, Belmont, and Lower Bedeque respectively. She left teaching for one year to study selected courses in English literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, becoming one of the few women of her time to seek higher education. It was during her stay at Dalhousie that she received the first payments for her writing.

She returned to Cavendish immediately to take care of her grandmother who otherwise would have had to leave her home. She remained with her grandmother for the next thirteen years, with the exception of a nine-month period in when she worked as a proof-reader for The Daily Echo in Halifax. During her years in Cavendish, Montgomery continued to write and sent off numerous poems, stories, and serials to Canadian, British, and American magazines.

Despite many rejections, she eventually commanded a comfortable income from her writing. Shortly after her grandmother's death inMontgomery married Ewen spelled in her notes and letters as "Ewan" [ 39 ] Macdonald —a Presbyterian minister[ 16 ] and they moved to Ontariowhere he had taken the position of minister of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Leaskdale in present-day Uxbridge Townshipalso affiliated with the congregation in nearby Zephyr.

Montgomery wrote her next 11 books from the Leaskdale manse that she complained had neither a bathroom nor a toilet. Macdonald was not especially intelligent, nor was he interested in literature. By contrast, Macdonald's parents had come to Canada after being evicted in the Highland Clearancesand he had no desire to visit the "Old Country".

Biography lm montgomery: LM Montgomery was a Canadian

His wife had to drag him to the Isle of Skyethe home of the Clan Macdonaldwhere the Macdonalds had once reigned as the Lords of the Isles. The Macdonalds had three sons; the second was stillborn. Montgomery believed it was her duty as a woman to make her marriage work, though, during a visit to Scotland, she quipped to a reporter, "Those women whom God wanted to destroy He would make into the wives of ministers.

During the First World WarMontgomery, horrified by reports of the " Rape of Belgium " inwas an intense supporter of the war effort, seeing the war as a crusade to save civilization, regularly writing articles urging men to volunteer for the Canadian Expeditionary Force and for people on the home front to buy victory bonds. But oh, there have been such hideous stories in the papers lately of their cutting off the hands of little children in Belgium.

Can they be true? They have committed terrible outrages and crimes, that is too surely true, but I hope desperately that these stories of the mutilation of children are false. They harrow my soul. I walk the floor in my "biography lm montgomery" over them. I cry myself to sleep about them and wake again in the darkness to cringe with the horror of it.

If it were Chester! In Leaskdale, like everywhere else in Canada, recruiting meetings were held where ministers, such as the Reverend Macdonald, would speak of Kaiser Wilhelm II as the personification of evil, described the "Rape of Belgium" in graphic detail, and asked for young men to step up to volunteer to fight for Canada, the British Empire, and for justice, in what was described at the time as a crusade against evil.

War is horrible, but there are things that are more horrible still, just as there are fates worse than death. Montgomery identified very strongly with the Allied cause, leading her on March 10,to write in her diary: "All my misery seemed to centre around Verdun where the snow was no longer white. I seemed in my own soul to embrace all the anguish and strain of France.

I was at peace. The conviction seized upon me that Verdun was safe-that the Germans would not pass the grim barrier of desperate France. I was as a woman from whom some evil spirit had been driven-or can it be as a priestess of old, who out of depths of agony wins some strange foresight of the future? When she heard of the fall of Kut-al-Amarashe wrote in her diary on May 1, "Kut-el-Amara has been compelled to surrender at last.

We have expected it for some time, but that did not prevent us from feeling very blue over it all. It is an encouragement to the Germans and a blow to Britain's prestige. I feel too depressed tonight to do anything. As it went on, Maud wrote in her diary "it unsettles him and he cannot do his work properly. Montgomery, a deeply religious woman, wrote in her diary: "I believe in a God who is good, but not omnipotent.

I also believe in a principle of Evil, equal to God in power I believe an infinite ceaseless struggle goes on between them. Her journals show she was absolutely consumed by it, wracked by it, tortured by it, obsessed by it -- even addicted to it. Montgomery underwent several periods of depression while trying to cope with the duties of motherhood and church life and with her husband's attacks of religious melancholia endogenous major depressive disorder and deteriorating health: "For a woman who had given the world so much joy, life was mostly an unhappy one.

The drug counters were besieged with frantic people seeking remedies and safeguards". I never felt so sick or weak in my life", going on to express thanks to God and her friends for helping her survive the ordeal. After the First World War, a recurring character in Montgomery's journal that was to obsess her for the rest of her life was "the Piper", who at first appeared as a heroic Highlander biography lm montgomery from Scotland, leading men into battle while playing traditional Highland tunes, but who turned out to be the Pied Piper of Hamelina trickster taking children away from their parents forever.

Mary with his courage. After the end of the Great War and the death of their mutual close friend, Frederica, Ewen Macdonald suffered a nervous breakdown and was never the same person he had been before The Reverend Ewen Macdonald, a good Calvinist who believed in predestination, had become convinced that he was not one of "the Elect" chosen by God to go to Heaven, leading him to spend hours depressed and staring into space.

A letter from some pathetic ten-year old in New York who implores me to send her my photo because she lies awake in her bed wondering what I look like. Well, if she had a picture of me in my old dress, wresting with the furniture this morning, "cussing" the ashes and clinkers, she would die of disillusionment. However, I shall send her a reprint of my last photo in which I sat in rapt inspiration—apparently—at my desk, with pen in my hand, in gown of lace and silk with hair so—Amen.

A quite passable woman, of no kin whatever to the dusty, ash-covered Cinderella of the furnace-cellar. For much of her life, writing was her one great solace. My love for Hermann Leard, though so incomplete, is Montgomery believed her spells of depression and the migraine headaches she suffered from were both expressions of her suppressed romantic passions and Leard's ghost haunting her.

Starting inMontgomery was engaged in five bitter, costly, and burdensome lawsuits with Louis Coues Pageowner of the publishing house L. Montgomery hired a lawyer in Boston and sued Page in the Massachusetts Court of Equity for illegally withholding royalties due her and for selling the U. Inthe house where Montgomery grew up in Cavendish was torn down by her uncle, who complained that too many tourists were coming on to the property to see the house that inspired the house in which Anne was depicted as growing up.

InMontgomery was infuriated with the film version of Anne of Green Gables for changing Anne from a Canadian to an American, writing in her diary:. It was a pretty little play well photographed, but I think if I hadn't already known it was from my book, that I would never have recognized it. The landscape and folks were 'New England', never P.

A skunk and an American flag were introduced—both equally unknown in PE Island. I could have shrieked with rage over the latter. Such crass, blatant Yankeeism! Montgomery", who is only mentioned in passing two-thirds into the article with the major focus being on the film's star Mary Miles Minterwho was presented as the true embodiment of Anne.

Page had acquired the film rights to the story inand as such, all of the royalties paid by Hollywood for both versions of Anne of Green Gables went to him, not Montgomery. Other series written by Montgomery include the "Emily" and "Pat" books, which, while successful, did not reach the same level of public acceptance as the "Anne" volumes.

She also wrote a number of stand-alone novels, which were also generally successful, if not as successful as her Anne books. On August 20,Montgomery started writing what became the novel Emily of New Moonas she planned to replace Anne with Emily as the star of a new series of novels. Ina Massachusetts court ruled in favour of Montgomery against her publisher, Louis Coues Page, as the judge found that he had systemically cheated her out of the profits from the Anne books since In terms of sales, both in her lifetime and since, Montgomery was the most successful Canadian author of all time, but because her books were seen as children's books and as women's books, she was often dismissed by the critics, who saw Montgomery as merely a writer for schoolgirls, and not as a serious writer.

InEwen Macdonald became estranged from his flock when he opposed his church"s joining the United Church of Canadaand was involved in an incident where he nearly ran over a Methodist minister who was promoting the union. InMontgomery's extremely depressed husband signed himself into a sanatorium in Guelph. After his release, the drug store gave Montgomery a "blue pill" intended to treat her husband's depression that was accidentally laced with insecticide a mistake on the part of the drug store clerk that almost killed him.

InMontgomery published Pat of Silver Bushwhich reflected a move towards more "adult" stories for young people. Not externallybut spiritually she is I". Inupon her husband's retirement, Montgomery moved to SwanseaOntario, a suburb of Toronto, buying a house that she named Journey's End, situated on Riverside Drive along the east bank of the Humber River.

Montgomery continued to write and in addition to writing other material, returned to writing about Anne after a year hiatus, filling in previously unexplored gaps in the chronology she had developed for the character. Writing kept up Montgomery's spirits as she battled depression while taking various pills to improve her mood, but in public she presented a happy, smiling face, giving speeches to various professional groups all over Canada.

I thought nobody but Indians ever heard it. We hear it often because we are a biography lm montgomery race. My full name is Laughing Grey Owl. On November 10,Montgomery gave a speech in Toronto at another annual gathering of the Toronto Book Fair calling for Canadian writers to write more stories about Canada, arguing that Canadians had great stories worth writing.

ScottMorley Callaghan and Raymond Knister complained about the mostly female membership of the CAA, whom they felt had overly glorified someone like Montgomery who was not a "serious" writer. Montgomery was greatly upset by World War IIcalling the war in a letter "this nightmare that has been loosed on the world Such suffering and wretchedness.

My oldest son has made a mess of his life and his wife has left him. My husband's nerves are even worse than mine. I have kept the nature of his attacks from you for over 20 years but they have broken me at last I could not go out to select a book for you this year. Pardon me. I could not even write this if I had not been a hypodermic. The war situation kills me along with many other things.

I expect conscription will come in and they will take my second son and then I will give up all effort to recover because I shall have nothing to live for. Inthe Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King introduced conscription under the National Resources Mobilization Actbut with the caveat that conscripts could only be used in the defence of North America, and only volunteers would be sent overseas.

Mackenzie King scheduled a referendum for April 27,to ask the voters to release him from his promise to only send volunteers overseas, which Montgomery alluded to in her letter mentioning "conscription will come in. My mind is gone—everything in the world I lived for has gone—the world has gone mad. I shall be driven to end my life.

Oh God, forgive me. Nobody dreams of what my awful position is. In the last year of her life, Montgomery completed what she intended to be a ninth book featuring Anne, titled The Blythes Are Quoted. It included fifteen short stories many of which were previously published that she revised to include Anne and her family as mainly peripheral characters; forty-one poems most of which were previously published that she attributed to Anne and to her son Walter, who died as a soldier in the Great War; and vignettes featuring the Blythe family members discussing the poems.

The book was delivered to Montgomery's publisher on the day of her death, but for reasons unexplained, the publisher declined to issue the book at the time. Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre speculates that the book's dark tone and anti-war message Anne speaks very bitterly of WWI in one passage may have made the volume unsuitable to publish in the midst of the Second World War.

An abridged version of this book, which shortened and reorganized the stories and omitted all the vignettes and all but one of the poems, was published as a collection of short stories called The Road to Yesterday inmore than 30 years after the original work had been submitted. A complete edition of The Blythes Are Quotededited by Benjamin Lefebvre, was finally published in its entirety by Viking Canada in Octobermore than 67 years after it was composed.

On April 24,Montgomery was found dead in her bed in her Toronto home. The primary cause of death recorded on her death certificate was coronary thrombosis. A note was found on Montgomery's bedside table, which read, in part: [ ]. I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand.

Biography lm montgomery: LM Montgomery (Lucy Maud Montgomery) was

My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best. An alternative explanation of this document is provided in Mary Henley Rubio's biography Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wingswhich suggests that Montgomery may have intended it as an entry in part of a journal now lost, rather than a suicide note.

During her lifetime, Montgomery had published twenty novels, over short stories, an autobiography, and a book of poetry. Aware of her fame, by Montgomery began editing and recopying her journals, presenting her life as she wanted it remembered. In doing so, certain episodes were changed or omitted.