She was (and is) best-known for Anne of Green Gables, but she wrote so much more: hundreds of short stories and poems and dozens of books.
A few bits of trivia regarding the Anne books:
- She didn't plan on writing about Anne after the first book, but readers (and publishers) demanded more.
- She often said that Anne wasn't supposed to grow up. Indeed, in the later books, she focuses on Anne's children.
- She didn't write the books in the order we typically read them. Here's the original publication order:
Note that the last two (Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside) are the ones that are out of order. When readers clamored for more, she wrote those two in natural gaps in the timeline.
But that's why, after reading the emotional and romantic Anne of Island, reading Windy Poplars next is a total let-down. Her fans didn't read them in that order. She just found a 3-year gap during Anne and Gilbert's engagement that she could come up with more material for.
After House of Dreams, which is about Anne and Gilbert's early married years, she skipped ahead to when they have a bunch of kids (Rainbow Valley).
She followed that up with Rilla, which is about Anne's youngest child as a teen during World War I.
RANT: Don't both watching the supposed Anne movie set during WWI. It literally has nothing to do with anything LMM ever wrote and violates the timeline by jumping ahead almost 20 years. Remember, Anne's youngest child (she has six, after one stillborn) was a teen during the Great War. Anne wasn't childless chasing after Gilbert in Europe. Someone had a story, slapped on familiar character names, and figured it would make money. GRRRR.
I've written about her several times at the posts linked to below.
Enjoy!
- NOT an Anne Freak
- How I Pulled an Anne
- Happy Birthday, LMM (from 2009)
- LMM, Second Generation
- L. M. Montgomery and My Truth About Depression
- Happens to the Best of Us (LMM & rejection)
- Fiction Fantasies (LMM & many other faves)
