April 07, 2008

Looking for Anne

Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic by Irene Gammel

Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic is a book by Irene Gammel that was published in Canada in April 2008 by Key Porter Books. Released on the centenary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables, the 312-page book explores the origins of L.M. Montgomery's celebrated novel. Gammel delves into Montgomery's biography during the period that Anne of Green Gables was written and published and looks beyond conventional sources to investigate the author's sources of inspiration.

In the United States, Gammel's book was published under an alternate title, Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic. This version of the book was published by St. Martin's Press in July 2008.

Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic by Irene Gammel

In an interview about Looking for Anne, Irene Gammel talked about the book's structure saying, "Looking for Anne is a dual biography because I wanted to show that Maud projected aspects of herself into the novel—her own ambition, her determination, her loneliness, and her hunger for love and family life. I also wanted to show that the novel was a wish fulfilment dream. She dreamed up the things she did not have in her own life. Ultimately, we also see a woman who was successful as a writer because she combined the role of romantic dreamer with that of pragmatic business woman, launching herself from small-town Cavendish onto the world stage."

Here is the description of the book from Ryerson University:

By any standards, Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables is a stunning success. Published in 1908 (and not once out of print), Anne has sold more than 50 million copies, been translated into more than 17 languages (including Braille), and become the focus of international conferences devoted to its interpretation. Anne has remained, as Matthew sings in the musical, ‘forever young,’ no small feat for the spunky, in-your-face redhead who, in 2008, celebrates her 100th birthday!

But why Anne? How does Montgomery’s classic work pull so many international readers into the vortex of Anne’s freckled face and carrotty braids? How does this little book create such enduring interest around the world? The answer is far more intriguing than any story even Anne could have imagined. In her journal, Maud’s quick pen would froth up the tiniest details of her life into dramatic events, but that same pen never revealed a word about Anne until years later. As a result, the novel’s secrets have remained sealed for over a century.

Looking for Anne is the untold story of a literary classic and a writer who found inspiration in many places including the popular images of the era, such as beauty icons, fashion plates, and advertisements; a writer who quietly quarried her material from American mass market periodicals; who consciously imitated formula fiction to create marketable stories for juvenile periodicals, religious newspapers, and glamorous women’s magazines and who ultimately, in the storm that brewed up the novel, also transcended these influences to create a twentieth-century literary classic that would conquer the world.

Blending biography with cultural history, penetrating and uncensored, this is the definitive book on Anne of Green Gables. Looking for Anne captures both the spirit of Marilla’s critical probing for ‘bald facts’ and Anne’s belief in the infinite power of the imagination. It is a must-read for anyone who has ever fallen under the spell of Anne with an ‘e.’


Reviews:

"Much has been written about Anne's enduring appeal, by academics and critics debating her proto-feminist status or unpacking her influence on children's literature. Less known is her genesis, and it's this 'perfect storm of inspiration' reconstructed by Gammel, a professor of English at Ryerson University"
—Kate Bolick The New York Times (full review)

"With painstaking research and detail, Gammel explores the social and literary influences that guided and inspired Montgomery in creating her impetuous heroine."
—Cori Dusmann, Quill & Quire (full review)


The book includes the following contents:

PROLOGUE: The Mystery of Anne of Green Gables

PART 1: The Perfect Storm, Fall 1903–Spring 1905
1 / Old Memories and New Ambitions
2 / The Model for Anne's Face
3 / Building Castles in Spain
4 / The Orphan Girl and the Snow Queen

PART 2: Writing Anne, Spring 1905–Winter 1907
5 / Romantic Orchards, Kindred Spririts, and a Spring Flirtation
6 / Maud's Bosom Friends
7 / Pagan Love and Sacred Promises: Anne and Diana
8 / Good Enemies and Old Love Letters
9 / Wicked Satire in Small-Town Avonlea
10 / This Old Place Has a Soul, Green Gables
11 / Red Hair, Puffed Sleeves, and the Rituals of Growing Up
12 / Farewells and Decisions
13 / The Mystery of Anne Revealed

PART 3: Anne Takes Off, Spring 1907–Fall 1938
14 / The Most Popular Summer Girl
15 / The Vows Kept for Life

EPILOGUE: Dramatis Personae

Abbreviations
Endnotes
Selected Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index


ISBN-13 (Canada): 978-1-55263-985-6
ISBN-13 (US): 978-0-312-38238-4

Related Link:
The Anne of Green Gables Centenary

Image credits:
Book covers of Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic and Looking for Anne: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic.

Purchase and read Looking for Anne:

Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic by Irene Gammel Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic by Irene Gammel

Created April 7, 2008. Last updated October 8, 2024.
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