Who is Your Fictional Crush?

Might it be Gilbert Blythe or Anne Shirley?

I read a fun article on literary crushes by Alison Flood at The Guardian today that mentions Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. Flood describes a petition that was launched in Japan to legalize marriages between humans and cartoon characters. Flood writes, "it made me wonder which fictional character I'd marry, legal niceties permitting. As a teenager I'd have plumped for any of the Georgette Heyer heroes (particularly the Earl of Rule), or Jilly Cooper's Rupert Campbell-Black, or Rhett Butler. Before those days I had quite a crush on Gilbert from Anne of Green Gables and Laurie from Little Women."

Do you have a fictional crush? If so, who is it? L.M. Montgomery's Gilbert Blythe is surely on my list. And I know from my many years on the Anne of Green Gables Forum that Jonathan Crombie's Gilbert makes many women swoon. We joked for years there about solid chocolate Gilbert dolls.


Reference:
Flood, Alison. (2008, October 30). Who is your literary crush? The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/oct/30/literary-crush-alison-flood

Image credit:
Photograph of Jonathan Crombie as Gilbert Blythe and Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel © Sullivan Entertainment

Created October 31, 2008. Last updated April 19, 2024.
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Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning

Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning is a book by filmmaker Kevin Sullivan, which was adapted from his original screenplay for the television movie Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning (2008). The movie and book were created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery's novel Anne of Green Gables. Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning was published in hardback in 2008 by Key Porter Books, and a paperback edition of the book was published by Davenport Press in 2009.

In his acknowledgements at the end of the book, Kevin Sullivan writes, "Lastly, to Lucy Maud Montgomery, whose journey through life as a magnificent storyteller provided me with the impetus to begin to question what Anne would have been like had she grown up to become an author like Montgomery herself, and how Anne as a child might have looked had Montgomery delved even deeper into her own personal back story in the creation of her illustrious heroine. With enormous gratitude at having had the privilege of creating a body of work inspired by one of Canada's most pre-eminent and enduring authors."

Here is the book's description from its inner cover:

It's the early 1940s, and the war in Europe is winding down. Anne Shirley—now a successful, middle-aged writer—has returned to Prince Edward Island for an extended visit. On a whim, she's agreed to write a play for theatre producer and friend Gene Armstrong; a play that will be performed as part of the White Sand Hotel's summer stock season.

But Anne is forced to admit that the play is nothing more than a distraction—a way to take her mind off troublesome recent events in her life. Her only son Dominic has yet to return from the war. The play, she reasons, will keep her busy—at least busy enough to not go out of her mind with worry.

But a long-hidden secret discovered under the floorboards at Green Gables provides a distraction of its own. As Anne struggles to complete the play she has promised to Gene, she delves into long-buried memories, reliving the troubled years before she arrived as an orphan at the Cuthberts' farmhouse. Over the course of one remarkable summer, Anne Shirley discovers the truth about her parents, the origins of her quest for "kindred spirits," and the roots of her brilliant, magical imagination.

In celebration of the centennial of the publication of L.M. Montgomery's original novel, and inspired by Montgomery's own creation of Anne, three-time Emmy award-winner and filmmaker Kevin Sullivan gives Anne fans a rare treat: a moving and complex glimpse into the circumstances that created one of the most beloved fictional characters of our time.

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Photograph of my copy of Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning.

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Created October 27, 2008. Last updated December 4, 2024.
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Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery

Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery by Elizabeth Waterston was published by Oxford University Press in June 2008. This book examines L.M. Montgomery's novels in chronological order, drawing comparisons between her literary creations and her personal life.

Here is the description of the volume from the Oxford University Press (archived):

L.M. Montgomery grew up in Prince Edward Island, a real place of "politics and potatoes." But it's her fictional island, a richly textured imaginative landscape that has captivated a world of readers since 1908, when Anne of Green Gables became the first of Montgomery's long string of bestsellers.

In this wide-ranging and highly readable book, Elizabeth Waterston uses the term "magic" to suggest that peculiar, indefinable combination of attributes that unpredictably results in creative genius. Montgomery's intelligence, her drive, and her sense of humour are essential components of this success. Waterston also features what Montgomery called her "dream life," a "strange inner life of fancy which had always existed side by side with my outer life." This special ability to look beyond the veil, to access vibrant inner vistas, produced deceptively layered fictions out of a life that saw not just its share of both fame and ill fortune, but also what Waterston calls "dark passions."

A true reader's guide, Magic Island explores the world of L.M. Montgomery in a way never done before. Each chapter of Magic Island discusses a different Montgomery book, following their progression chronologically. Waterston draws parallels between Montgomery's internal "island," her personal life, her professional career, and the characters in her novels. Designed to be read alongside the new biography of Montgomery by Mary Rubio, this is the first book to reinterpret Montgomery's writing in light of important new information about her life. A must-read for any Montgomery fan, Magic Island offers a fresh and insightful look at the world of L.M. Montgomery and the "magic" of artistic creation.

Review

Revisiting the metaphor of the island, one that she first established in a classic essay on Montgomery in 1966, Waterston draws parallels between the island setting of the author's fiction (all but one of her novels take place on an island, and the majority are set on Prince Edward Island) and her internal island of imagination, exploring Montgomery's social relations, her professional career, and the sources for characters in her novels. 

— Kathleen A. Miller, Children's Literature

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Book cover of Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery.

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Created August 2, 2008. Last updated August 19, 2024.
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100th Anniversary Anne of Green Gables Coin

On April 16, 2008, the Royal Canadian Mint released a special Anne of Green Gables coin on the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery’s novel. The coin is presented in a illustrated full color folder with an illustration of the Green Gables house by Christopher Kovacs shown above. The 25 cent coin is a beautiful collector’s piece with a multicolor image of Anne Shirley by Ben Stahl on the reverse side and an effigy of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse side.

Here's an image showing the back of the coin presentation folder:

The Anne of Green Gables coin is described as follows:

"This magnificent 35mm nickel plated steel coin celebrates the literary heroine Anne Shirley with a beautiful painted portrait reflecting her colourful, melodramatic nature. One can easily imagine Anne on the red shores of Prince Edward Island looking out to sea with romantic longing, her blue dress, straw hat and wildflowers so characteristic of 19th-century island life. Based on an original image by Ben Stahl."

"In 1908, an unassuming novel by L.M. Montgomery of Prince Edward Island captivated the world with its heartwarming tale of Anne Shirley, an irrepressible orphan girl who enchants the island’s quiet community of Avonlea with her vivid imagination and endless mishaps. Published in over 20 languages and now 100 years in print, this story continues to delight and charm."

Created July 2, 2008. Last updated June 13, 2022.
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100th Anniversary Anne of Green Gables Stamps

On June 20, 2008, Canada Post and Japan Post jointly released special Anne of Green Gables stamps on the 100th anniversary of the publication of L.M. Montgomery's novel. The dreamy portrait of Anne Shirley is by Ben Stahl, and the painting of the iconic Green Gables house is by Christopher Kovacs. The sweet animated drawings of Anne Shirley, Matthew Cuthbert, Diana Barry, Gilbert Blythe, and Marilla Cuthbert are from the anime series Anne of Green Gables (1979) aka Akage no An by Nippon Animation, which was part of the World Masterpiece Theater series.

Canada Post also issued a souvenir sheet with a set of two 52¢ Anne of Green Gables stamps to commemorate the occasion with artwork by Ben Stahl and Christopher Kovacs.



The following wonderful article was published by Canada Post upon the release of the stamps with biographical information on L.M. Montgomery, a description of her beloved Prince Edward Island, and details on the artwork, digital illustration, and stamp design:

Issued: June 20, 2008

Article published in

Canada's Stamp Details (Vol. XVII No 2; April to June 2008)

It's hard to believe that the irrepressible Anne Shirley might have lain hidden in a hat box forever. When Lucy Maud Montgomery completed her first novel in 1905, she received several rejections from publishers, so she put the story away. But Anne, with characteristic persistence, must have tugged at her imagination. A few years later, Montgomery retrieved the novel and sent it out again. Anne of Green Gables was finally published in Boston in 1908, to immediate success.

One hundred years later, Anne and her story are featured on a pair of domestic rate (52¢) stamps issued by Canada Post to celebrate the novel's centennial. The stamp images are based on original artwork officially authorized by The heirs of Lucy Maud Montgomery and the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority Inc. The painting of Anne was created by Ben Stahl, and that of her beloved Green Gables house by Christopher Kovacs.

"Anne is such a unique character, so full of life and so inspired by nature," says designer Dennis Page. "These paintings represent her story well-the images are surrounded by nature, and Anne appears lost in her thoughts."

Anne's name, he notes, is printed on the stamps in a typeface as personal and expressive as she is. Page also worked with digital illustrator Mike Little on a unique frame for the two images, which serves as a subtle reminder that Anne's famous story is actually a work of fiction. "The stamp frames are meant to resemble the pages of a book printed in 1908, with deckle edges and an original look and feel."

Even Montgomery said she never felt quite truthful admitting that this vibrant red-headed girl was indeed a fictional character. Although Anne of Green Gables was her first novel, Montgomery had been writing poems and stories since childhood, inspired by her life on Prince Edward Island. Born in 1874, she was not even two when her mother died of tuberculosis and she was sent to live with her grandparents in Cavendish, a town later made famous as Avonlea. She grew up immersed in nature and Anne's scenic descriptions of Avonlea are drawn from Montgomery's own experiences of living in Cavendish where she was enchanted by the orchards, woods and beaches. Montgomery once wrote, "Everything was invested with a kind of fairy grace and charm, emanating from my own fancy, the trees that whispered nightly around the old house where I slept, the woodsy nooks I explored, the homestead fields, each individualized by some oddity or fence or shape, the sea whose murmur was never out of my ears - all were radiant with 'the glory and the dream'...amid all the commonplaces of life, I was very near to a kingdom of ideal beauty."¹ Montgomery continued writing while training and working briefly as a teacher, and was earning a comfortable income from her published work even before the success of Anne of Green Gables. Eventually she married and moved to Ontario, but her heart and imagination stayed on the Island.

The house known as Green Gables is now a national historic site, with an operational period-style post office. Montgomery never actually lived there, but it was home to relatives, and she often explored the surrounding property. The setting clearly inspired her-the landscape near Cavendish is as vivid a character in her books as any other. To recognize this special place as uniquely Canadian, the souvenir sheet bears a maple leaf die perforation between the two stamps.

The Cavendish connection is featured on a souvenir sheet official first day cover (OFDC), and on two additional OFDCs, each bearing double cancels-one real (Cavendish PE) and one fictional (Avonlea PE).

Anne has captured the imaginations of girls around the world and her story has a special history for many Japanese. Anne first arrived in Japan in the 1930s with Canadian missionary Loretta Shaw. When Shaw left the country at the start of the Second World War, she gave a copy of the novel to her friend Hanako Muraoka, who translated it as Akage no An, literally "Anne of the Red Hair". After the war ended, Japanese education officials were eager to introduce children to Western texts, and Muraoka suggested the novel. In 1952, it was included in the school curriculum, and it has been well loved by generations of students ever since. Today, thousands of Japanese travel to Cavendish each year to visit Anne's fictional home.

Despite its distinctly Canadian setting, Anne of Green Gables belongs to the world. The story has captured the imaginations of readers in many languages and countries. "In Japan, readers have formed a fan club called the 'Buttercups,' named for Anne's favourite flower," says Joy Parks, Research Officer, Stamp Services, at Canada Post. Buttercups appear on the floral envelope seals included with the stamp booklet, part of a collection of flowers reproduced from the paintings depicted on the stamps. Like the wildflowers that return to bloom each spring, Anne lives on in the imagination of her readers, as real today as when she was first published.

Additional information is available on the following websites:
www.gov.pe.ca/lmm
www.lmmontgomery.ca

¹ Stan Sauerwein, Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Incredible Life of the Creator of Anne of Green Gables (Canmore, Alberta: Altitude Publishing Canada Ltd.) 2004, p. 22-23.

Created June 30, 2008. Last updated January 20, 2024.
© worldofanneshirley.com

Looking for Anne

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.


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.

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Created April 7, 2008. Last updated October 8, 2024.
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Anne of Green Gables Diary

Anne of Green Gables Diary features illustrations of Anne Shirley by artist Muriel Wood. Interspersed among the lined pages of the 160-page book are quotes by L.M. Montgomery from Anne of Green Gables. The diary was published in March 2008 by Fitzhenry & Whiteside to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables in 1908.

The book would be perfect for an aspiring writer like L.M. Montgomery, who began keeping a diary in her youth and continued writing in it through her entire life.

Here is the description of the book from the publisher:

Lucy Maud Montgomery's beloved classic Anne of Green Gables was first published in 1908. Celebrate 100 years of Anne in this diary, where on every page her words will inspire you to record your own private thoughts, observations, and sketches.

ISBN-13: 978-1554550661

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Book cover of Anne of Green Gables Diary.

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Created April 6, 2008. Last updated December 28, 2024.
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Imagining Anne: L.M. Montgomery's Island Scrapbooks

Imagining Anne by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly presents L.M. Montgomery's Prince Edward Island scrapbooks, which she created from 1893 to 1910. Montgomery's scrapbooks present memories from a joyful time in her life during which she created Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables. The book presents full-page images from two scrapbooks owned by the Lucy Maud Montgomery Birthplace and maintained by the Confederation Centre of the Arts. Epperly provides explanatory notes throughout to provide insight into Montgomery's life and interpret her scrapbook presentations.

This book was first published in February 2008 as Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery by Penguin Canada as part of the "100 Years of Anne" celebration.

In July 2019, a second edition of the book entitled Imagining Anne: L.M. Montgomery's Island Scrapbooks was released by Nimbus Publishing.

Here is the description of the book from Nimbus Publishing:

L. M. Montgomery’s beautiful Island scrapbooks, covering a period from 1893 to mid-1910, are finally back in print. Reflecting Montgomery’s youth and optimism, these full-colour pages are filled with meaningful insight into the life of a young writer’s inspiration during the period when she would create the beloved character of Anne Shirley, who would win the hearts of readers worldwide with the publication of Anne of Green Gables in 1908. With annotations and notes from Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Epperly, Imagining Anne allows fans a revealing look inside the mind of one of the most cherished writers of the twentieth century.

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Book covers of Imagining Anne: L.M. Montgomery's Island Scrapbooks and Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery.

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Created February 20, 2008. Last updated September 20, 2024.
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