The star in our backyard

Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery "exhibited cultural capital stronger than Margaret Atwood.”

One day last summer, as I passed through Leaskdale, I saw them. About a dozen people had gathered beside the historic plaque in the town. There were just as many cameras present, as all members of the group snapped photographs with the entire entourage standing in front of the manse. The visitors were Asian. I can’t be sure, because I didn’t stop to ask, but they drove a rented van, so I imagine they had come from the United States, some other part of Canada or possibly even Asia itself.

For them, the Lucy Maud Montgomery manse was like Mecca.

I didn’t have to stop to ask them why. I’m sure they knew that this modest little residence, in September of 1911, began to take its place in the Canadian and world literary history. That fall it became the home of the Rev. Ewan Macdonald, pastor of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, and his new bride, Lucy Maud Montgomery. No doubt those Asian tourists also knew that during the ensuing 15 years, two Macdonald sons were born there, as were 11 best-selling manuscripts, including Anne of the Island (1915), Anne’s House of Dreams (1917), and Maud’s Emily series.

What those dyed-in-the-wool fans know and what Heritage Canada, the federal department that in 1997 designated the Leaskdale manse a historic site, also knows, is that Lucy Maud Montgomery made literary history here. And, as I learned over the weekend, she also made among the strongest statements of womanhood, of a national culture and indeed of Canadian identity. Last Saturday was Lucy Maud Montgomery Day in Leaskdale and among the day-long festivities, I caught a presentation by LMM researcher and scholar, Irene Gammel.

“Maud exhibited cultural capital stronger than Margaret Atwood,” she said during her talk. Gammel even compared Montgomery’s stature to that of American humourist Mark Twain or British novelist Jane Austen.

Dr. Gammel has spent much of her professional life delving into the poetry, fictional manuscripts and factual diaries of our Maud. She holds a Ph.D. in English from McMaster and currently teaches English at Ryerson University. Perhaps most important to us in this community, however, is that Dr. Gammel has emerged as a major force raising the profile of Lucy Maud Montgomery on the Canadian cultural stage as well as the world cultural stage. Dr. Gammel has edited three scholarly books analyzing Maud’s impact and influence on narrative and currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Modern Literature and Culture. Next year, she will teach the first ever LMM graduate course at Ryerson and in March 2008 (the 100th anniversary of the original publication of Anne of Green Gables) she will release for publication her own book, “Looking for Anne, How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed up her Literary Classic.”

Among many fascinating discoveries Dr. Gammel shared with us last Saturday was her research of a photograph tucked into one of Maud’s intimate journals. It’s a portrait of a teen-aged model Gammel says inspired Maud’s classic character Anne Shirley at the turn of the 19th century. “This portrait of a New York Gibson Girl,” she said, “came to (Maud’s) homestead on the cover of a magazine” and helped the author shape the determined, passionate and endearing character so many readers have adored and followed so loyally in North America and beyond, for almost a century.

Following her presentation at St. Paul’s Church in Leaskdale, I asked Dr. Gammel why Lucy Maud Montgomery didn’t enjoy wider acceptance and notoriety in Canada. She said, in Maud’s day, it might have been because she was a woman writing a genre of books geared for young girls. She even noted that Maud admits in her journals that she was “caught in the rut of writing formula stories for money.” Still, Dr. Gammel hastens to add that Maud was fiercely determined to succeed critically and professionally. If you doubt it, go to any library.

“Maud’s Anne of Green Gables,” Irene Gammel pointed out, “is the one book most often available in international libraries.”

Again, I imagine that’s a fact those Asian tourists I saw last summer at the manse could likely have told me in an instant. They appeared to see something we have only begun to look at. Lucy Maud Montgomery and her literary voice have perhaps had as much impact on the culture of this country as maple syrup, Gordon Lightfoot or Hockey Night in Canada.

And she’s been right here in our own backyard for nearly a century.


About Ted Barris

Ted Barris is an accomplished author, journalist and broadcaster. As well as hosting stints on CBC Radio and regular contributions to the national press, he has authored 18 non-fiction books and served (for 18 years) as professor of journalism/broadcasting at Centennial College in Toronto. He has written a weekly column/webblog - The Barris Beat - for more than 30 years.

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