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Lucy Maud Montgomery
(1874-1942)
L.M. Montgomery objected to the notion that writing books for children didn't qualify her as an author of "serious literature"--and to the public's demand for insipid female characters.
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L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942)
Anne of Green Gables. Boston: L.C. Page & Co., 1908.
Almost from the moment Anne of Green Gables was released in 1908, L.M. Montgomery became an international sensation--and her readers clamored for more Anne stories. But Montgomery hated nothing more than the expectations that went with the pressure to write sequels.
"A book dealing with a 'miss' is always difficult for me to write--because the public and the publishers won't allow me
to write of the young girl as she really is," she confessed in a 1924 letter to fellow Canadian writer Ephraim Weber.
"One can write of children as they are; but when you come to write of the flapper you have to depict a sweet, insipid young thing--really a child grown older."
The Story Girl. Boston: L.C. Page & Co., 1911.
Nonetheless, Montgomery grudgingly acquiesced to the public demand for sequels to several of her books. These included the two-part Story Girl (1911) and Pat of Silver Bush (1933) series, the Emily of New Moon (1923) trilogy, and nine Anne novels.
"I can't afford to damn the public. I must cater to it awhile yet," she lamented.
These cover designs, illustrated by George Gibbs and popularized by her first publisher, L.C. Page & Co., depict her heroines in the glamorous late-nineteenth-century "Gibson girl" style. Although these covers are beautiful and still readily identifiable with Montgomery's books, it is unclear whether she thought they personified the "insipid" depictions she resisted.
This guest post was contributed by V.M. Braganza, lead curator. Images are in the public domain.
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