I cannot remember the time when I was not writing, or when I did not mean to be an author. To write has been my central purpose around which every effort and hope and ambition of my life has grouped itself. - L.M. Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery, or Maud, as she prefered to be called, was born November 30, 1874, in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Canada. After her mother died when Maud was eighteen months old, her father, Hugh John Montgomery, moved out west, leaving his only child with her grandparents, the MacNeills. Maud's grandparents were stern and unrelenting, like Emily's Aunt Elizabeth, and she had a lonely childhood similiar to Emily's early days at New Moon. Even at a young age, it was apparent that Maud was a gifted storyteller. At the age of seventeen, her retelling of one of her grandfather's favorite shipwreck stories won a national competition. She went on to attend Prince of Wales College (located in Charlottetown) in 1894, and then Dalhousie University in Halifax during 1895-1896. She worked for the Halifax newspaper, The Chronicle, and their evening publication, The Echo.
Maud returned to P.E.I. after the death of her grandfather to care for her grandmother and teach school. It was during this time that she began writing fiction for a living, her first published novel being Anne of Green Gables in 1908. The novel became overwhelmingly popular and made Maud famous. She followed with seven other Anne books and over twenty other novels and short story collections.
She left the island to move to Ontario with her husband, the Reverend Ewan Macdonald. The pair married on July 11, 1911, when Maud was 37, and honeymooned in Scotland. They had two sons, Chester, born in 1912, and Stewart, born in 1915. In 1935, Ewan retired from the ministry and the family moved to Toronto to a house Maud called Journey's End. She died there on April 24, 1942. Of all the characters that Maud had created, it is Emily Starr, with her passion for writing, her similar upbringing, and her ambitions, that Maud herself most closely resembled.
Other Novels by L.M. Montgomery
