November 30, 2015

Google Doodle Celebrates Lucy Maud Montgomery on her 141st Birthday

Google Doodle showing Anne Shirley and Diana Barry lying in a field

Today's Google Doodle celebrates L.M. Montgomery's 141st birthday with three animated doodles by Olivia When featuring scenes from Montgomery's beloved story Anne of Green Gables.

In one Google Doodle, Anne Shirley and Diana Barry are laying in a field of field of flowers. Anne is writing, while Diana is reading. The pair are wearing flower crowns in their hair.

In a second Google Doodle, Anne Shirley turns green when she tastes the layered cake she prepared for Mrs. Allen's visit to the Cuthbert home. Anne accidentally flavored her cake with anodyne liniment, thinking it was vanilla. Marilla had poured her liniment into an old vanilla bottle and hadn't relabeled the bottle.

Google Doodle showing Anne Shirley eating her liniment cake and turning green.


A third Google Doodle pictures show scenes on the Lake of Shining Waters, with Anne walking to school, Anne and Diana running together, and Gilbert Blythe saving Anne after she played Elaine, in the chapter titled, "An Unfortunate Lily Maid."

Google Doodle showing Anne Shirley and Diana Barry playing at the Lake of Shining Waters and Gilbert Blythe rescuing Anne, the unfortunate Lily Maid.


Google posted the following info about the L.M. Montgomery Google Doodles:

Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote her first novel in 1905. It was rejected by every single publishing house that received it. A few years later, Montgomery tried shopping it again and succeeded. Her story about the adventures of a red-headed girl in Prince Edward Island became a smash hit. That novel ultimately became one of Canada’s most all-time popular books, being translated into around 20 languages and selling more than 50 million copies to date. Anne of Green Gables and its many sequels made Montgomery a wildly successful author and turned PEI into a destination for the book’s thousands of fans.

One of Canada’s most celebrated writers, Montgomery also wrote hundreds of poems and short stories as well as a number of novels apart from the Anne series. She was the first Canadian woman to be made a member of the British Royal Society of Arts and was also appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Today, on what would have been her 141st birthday, we salute Lucy Maud Montgomery with a Doodle that pays tribute to her most iconic book.

Doodler Olivia When, herself an Anne of Green Gables fan, wanted to honor Montgomery by illustrating several scenes from the beloved novel, including a particularly memorable one in which Anne mistakenly bakes a cake with liniment (a medicated oil) instead of vanilla. Here’s to Anne with an “e” Shirley and her revered creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery.



Created November 30, 2015. Last updated September 4, 2023.
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October 20, 2015

L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942

L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942 edited by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement


L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942 was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in October 2015. This volume of scholarship examines L.M. Montgomery's life and work during her decades living in Ontario, Canada. The book was edited by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement. There are contributions by Elizabeth Waterston, Mary Beth Cavert, Margaret Steffler, Laura M. Robinson, Caroline E. Jones, William V. Thompson, Melanie J. Fishbane, Katherine Cameron, Emily Woster, Natalie Forest, E. Holly Pike, Linda Rodenburg, Kate Sutherland, Lesley D. Clement, and Kate Macdonald Butler.

Here is the description of the volume from McGill-Queen’s University Press:

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) and Anne of Green Gables will always be associated with Prince Edward Island, Montgomery's childhood home and the setting of her most famous novels. Yet, after marrying Rev. Ewan Macdonald in 1911, she lived in Ontario for three decades. There she became a mother of two sons, fulfilled the duties of a minister's wife, advocated for copyright protection and recognition of Canadian literature, wrote prolifically, and reached a global readership that has never waned.

Engaging with discussions on both her life and her fiction, L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys explores the joys, sorrows, and literature that emerged from her transformative years in Ontario. While this time brought Montgomery much pleasure and acclaim, it was also challenged and complicated by a sense of displacement and the need to self-fashion and self-dramatize as she struggled to align her private self with her public persona. Written by scholars from various fields and including a contribution by Montgomery's granddaughter, this volume covers topics such as war, religion, women's lives, friendships, loss, and grief, focusing on a range of related themes to explore Montgomery's varied states of mind.

An in-depth study of one of Canada's most internationally acclaimed authors, L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys shows how she recreated herself as an Ontario writer and adapted to the rapidly changing world of the twentieth century.

Contributors include Elizabeth Waterston (Guelph), Mary Beth Cavert (Independent), Margaret Steffler (Trent), Laura M. Robinson (Royal Military College), Caroline E. Jones (Austin Community College), William V. Thompson (Grant MacEwan University), Melanie J. Fishbane (Humber College), Katherine Cameron (Concordia University College), Emily Woster (Minnesota-Duluth), Natalie Forest (York), E. Holly Pike (Memorial-Grenfell), Linda Rodenburg (Lakehead-Orillia), Kate Sutherland (York), Lesley D. Clement (Lakehead-Orillia), Kate Macdonald Butler (Heirs of L.M. Montgomery Inc.).

Reviews

“With its interest in placing Montgomery’s work in new cultural and historical contexts, L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys expands our understanding of this canonical Canadian author. Although there is no disputing that PEI had an enduring impact on Montgomery's literary sensibility, Ontario played its part too, as the essays in this collection abundantly reveal.” Janice Fiamengo, University of Ottawa

“Coherent and well-structured, L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys breaks new ground with its singular focus on the Ontario years. It will unquestionably command the attention of an academic audience, but is also accessible to the general reader who has an interest in Montgomery or in Canadian culture.” Joy Alexander, Queen’s University, Belfast

L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valleys is important because it resists Montgomery’s own obsessive returns to Prince Edward Island, as well as those of her readers and critics. The collection remains grounded in her Ontario experience, demonstrating its influence on all the writing she did in the second half of her life.” The Times Literary Supplement


The book includes the following content and essays:

Introduction by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement

Prologue

1. Leaskdale: L.M. Montgomery’s Rainbow Valley by Elizabeth Waterston

A New Home in Leaskdale: War and Religion


2. “To the Memory of”: Leaskdale and Loss in the Great War by Mary Beth Cavert
3. “Being a Christian” and a Presbyterian in Leaskdale by Margaret Steffler

The Changing World of Women: Mother, Daughter, Friend

4. “A Gift for Friendship”: Revolutionary Friendship in Anne of the Island and The Blue Castle by Laura M. Robinson
5. The New Mother at Home: Montgomery’s Literary Explorations of Motherhood by Caroline E. Jones

Shadows in Rainbow Valley: Loss and Grief

6. The Shadow on the House of Dreams: Montgomery’s Re-Visioning of Anne by William V. Thompson
7. “My Pen Shall Heal, Not Hurt”: Writing as Therapy in Rilla of Ingleside and The Blythes Are Quoted by Melanie J. Fishbane

Interlude

L.M.M. by Katherine Cameron

A Sense of Place: Reading and Writing

8. Old Years and Old Books: Montgomery’s Ontario Reading and Self-Fashioning by Emily Woster
9. (Re)Locating Montgomery: Prince Edward Island Romance to Southern Ontario Gothic by Natalie Forest

Travels to Muskoka: Commodification and Tourism

10. Propriety and the Proprietary: The Commodification of Health and Nature in The Blue Castle by E. Holly Pike
11. Bala and The Blue Castle: The “Spirit of Muskoka” and the Tourist Gaze by Linda Rodenburg

Life in Toronto: Professional and Cultural Links

12. Advocating for Authors and Battling Critics in Toronto: Montgomery and the Canadian Authors Association by Kate Sutherland
13. Toronto’s Cultural Scene: Tonic or Toxin for a Sagged Soul? by Lesley D. Clement

Epilogue

14. Dear Grandmother Maud on the Road to Heaven by Kate Macdonald Butler

Appendix

Montgomery’s Ontario Legacies: A Community Presence in the Twenty-First Century by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement with the assistance of Kristina Eldridge and Chloe Verner


Image credit:

Book cover of L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942 from McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Purchase and read L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942:

L.M. Montgomery's Rainbow Valleys: The Ontario Years, 1911-1942 edited by Rita Bode and Lesley D. Clement

Created October 20, 2015. Last updated June 7, 2024.
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January 27, 2015

The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Three: A Legacy in Review

The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Three: A Legacy in Review edited by Benjamin Lefebvre

The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Three: A Legacy in Review edited by Benjamin Lefebvre was published by University of Toronto Press in January 2015. This book is a collection of over 400 newspaper reviews and advertisements for L.M. Montgomery's books. In his introduction, Benjamin Lefebvre states, "This third volume, subtitled A Legacy in Review, looks at the coverage Montgomery’s books have received in these reviews in the context of ads, notices, and bestseller lists appearing in print media dedicated to supporting the book industry."


Here is the description of the volume from University of Toronto Press:

Now available in paperback, The L.M. Montgomery Reader assembles rediscovered primary material on one of Canada’s most enduringly popular authors, spanning the entirety of her high-profile career and the years since her death.

Volume Three: A Legacy in Review examines a long overlooked portion of Montgomery’s critical reception: reviews of her books. Although Montgomery downplayed the impact that reviews had on her writing career, claiming to be amused and tolerant of reviewers’ contradictory opinions about her work, she nevertheless cared enough to keep a large percentage of them in scrapbooks as an archive of her career. This volume presents more than four hundred reviews from eight countries that raise questions about and offer reflections on gender, genre, setting, character, audience, and nationalism, much of which anticipated the scholarship that has thrived in the last four decades.

Each volume in The L.M. Montgomery Reader is accompanied by an extensive introduction and detailed commentary by leading Montgomery scholar Benjamin Lefebvre that traces the interplay between the author and the critic, as well as between the private and the public Montgomery.

The L.M. Montgomery Reader traces the author’s enduring legacy as a Canadian icon and as a literary celebrity both during and beyond her lifetime.

Reviews

"Lefebvre has thoroughly mined earlier scholars’ bibliographies and online newspaper archives to find reviews in periodicals from eight different countries, including the Bookman (London), the Globe (Toronto) and Vogue (New York). . . . Collectively, these reviews . . . represent a superb barometer of [Montgomery’s] fluctuating cultural value as a writer."
—Irene Gammel

"Benjamin Lefebvre amasses a century-long, world-wide array of responses to L.M. Montgomery’s work. Readers will be surprised and amused by his revelation of wild swings in taste and bias among critics of the ever-popular Canadian writer."
—Elizabeth Waterston, Department of English, University of Guelph


The book includes the following contents:

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

Introduction: A Legacy in Review
BENJAMIN LEFEBVRE

A Note on the Text

1 Anne of Green Gables (1908)

2 Anne of Avonlea (1909)

3 Kilmeny of the Orchard (1910)

4 The Story Girl (1911)

5 Chronicles of Avonlea (1912)

6 The Golden Road (1913)

7 Anne of the Island (1915)

8 The Watchman and Other Poems (1916)

9 Anne’s House of Dreams (1917)

10 Rainbow Valley (1919)

11 Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920)

12 Rilla of Ingleside (1921)

13 Emily of New Moon (1923)

14 Emily Climbs (1925)

15 The Blue Castle (1926)

16 Emily’s Quest (1927)

17 Magic for Marigold (1929)

18 A Tangled Web / Aunt Becky Began It (1931)

19 Pat of Silver Bush (1933)

20 Courageous Women (1934)
WITH MARIAN KEITH AND MABEL BURNS MCKINLEY

21 Mistress Pat: A Novel of Silver Bush (1935)

22 Anne of Windy Poplars / Anne of Windy Willows (1936)

23 Jane of Lantern Hill (1937)

24 Anne of Ingleside (1939)

Epilogue: Posthumous Titles, 1960–2013
BENJAMIN LEFEBVRE

Sources
Bibliography
Index


ISBN: 9781442644939


Image credit:
Book cover of The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Three: A Legacy in Review.

Purchase and read The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Three: A Legacy in Review:


The L.M. Montgomery Reader: Volume Three: A Legacy in Review edited by Benjamin Lefebvre

Created January 27, 2015. Last updated May 2, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com