#3 – On Anne of Green Gables
Three things I learned about the inspiration behind Anne
Hello Friends,
Happy October! I hope you are feeling the vibrancy of the season wherever you are in the world.
In today’s letter, I’d like to share with you three interesting things I learned from the book “Looking for Anne–How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic” by Irene Gammel.
I came upon this book quite by chance around this time last year. I was walking around my neighbourhood one evening when I saw a sign that directed me to a book sale event nearby. I wandered inside with no intention of purchasing any book, but then I saw a copy of “Looking for Anne” by Gammel.
I picked it up and read the blurb on the inside, which said that the book tells the story of how Anne of Green Gables was dreamed up by its author. Anne is a Canadian literary classic that has been in print for more than a century and has sold more than 50 million copies. As a fan of Anne and as a person who loves delving into the background history of how things were created, I found this title absolutely irresistible. I immediately decided that I needed to purchase it and read it ASAP.
(On a semi-related note, I also love “Saving Mr. Banks,” which is a movie about how the Mary Poppins movie was made. If you like Mary Poppins, I recommend that you check it out.)
Three interesting things I learned about the inspiration behind Anne:
Anne Shirley’s creation was initially inspired by a photo of American model Evelyn Nesbit Maud found in The Metropolitan Magazine. It is said that Maud clipped the photo from the magazine and hung it up on her wall while she was writing Anne. I love Gammel’s description of how the photo inspired the author:
“As Maud sat at her desk in the waning light of dusk, overlooking the lane and the fields outside, Evelyn’s enraptured face shared the afterglow of evening sunset, the stark light of a new moon, and the murmur of the sea in summertime.” (Page 37, Looking for Anne)
If you’d like to see the image that inspired Maud, it can be found on the Smithsonian’s website. I didn’t insert it here as I’m not sure if I can use it without their consent. This is the link: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1829667
Gammel writes that Anne was dreamed up by Maud over a long period of “gestation.” After initially being inspired by the photo, Maud also drew inspiration from a few other stories of Ann that she read in different magazines. While these stories provided sparks of inspiration, they are different from Anne’s story, and of course, these Ann’s names are spelled without an “e”! (Which is super important for Anne!)
On another note, it was hugely reassuring for me as a writer to read that the character of Anne was developed by Maud over a period of time rather than being a sudden, fully formed flash of inspiration. While I love imagining the latter since it is more poetic and dramatic, it doesn’t often happen in real life, and learning that as iconic a character as Anne came about over a period of time that was steeped in imagination and contemplation was deeply inspiring.
Many of Anne’s dispositions were inspired by Maud herself. For example, I learned that both Anne and Maud share their love of the natural world and the summer season. Gammel quotes this unpublished entry from Maud’s journal, “This August day was a great golden dulcet dream of peace through which the heart of summer throbbed with lazy rhythm.” After taking a walk on this night, Maud wrote,
“In its arch I saw a poem. Two spruces were clasping dark hands over an arc of silvery twilight sky; and right under the arch formed by their boughs was the new moon, like a sickle of red-gold.” (Page 149, Looking for Anne).
For me, this was very much reminiscent of Anne’s own effusions about the natural world. I can never forget the iconic scene when Anne encounters the Avenue and decides to rename it the White Way of Delight. When Matthew says that the Avenue is “a kind of pretty place,” Anne responds by saying,
“Pretty? Oh, pretty doesn’t seem the right word to use. Nor beautiful, either. They don’t go far enough. Oh, it was wonderful – wonderful. It’s the first thing I ever saw that couldn’t be improved upon by imagination. It just satisfied me here’ – she put one hand on her breast – ‘it made a queer funny ache and yet it was a pleasant ache.” — Anne Shirley
I love Anne! I could really go on but I also want to be cognizant of this letter’s length.
So this is it – this wraps up today’s mini sampling of these two wonderful books. If you’re looking for lots of more interesting insights into Anne of Green Gables and Maud’s life, I’d encourage you to check out “Looking for Anne” by Gammel. I thoroughly relished the book; plus, it’s got clear and beautiful prose.
Thank you for being here. I wish you a LIT(erary) weekend ahead!
With lots of saran wrapped love,
Saran
PS: A delightful quote from Maud:
“Peace! … You never know what peace is until you walk on the shores or in the fields or along the winding red roads of Prince Edward Island in a summer twilight when the dew is falling and the old old stars are peeping out and the sea keeps its mighty tryst with the little land it loves. You find your soul then. You realize that youth is not a vanished thing but something that dwells forever in the heart.” – L.M. Montgomery
PPS: After reading “Looking for Anne”, I totally wanted to go to PEI to witness its magic in person, but since I couldn’t do that, the next-best thing was to go see the house in Toronto where Maud lived the last years of her life. I took the below picture when I went to see her house last year. It was located in a quiet and lovely neighbourhood ensconced in lots of greenery.
