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Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s scrapbooks from the years 1893 to 1910 provide a revealing look into her life and inspiration during the time she created the beloved character of Anne Shirley while living on Prince Edward Island as a college student, teacher, and writer. In Imagining Anne , over 100 pages of the scrapbooks are fully and beautifully reproduced in colour, and the significance of the souvenirs and clippings Montgomery collected are explained by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly. This beautiful gift book is a must-have for all Montgomery fans, lovers of Canadian history, and scrapbook enthusiasts.
- GenresNonfictionCanada
176 pages, Hardcover
First published February 5, 2008
1 person is currently reading
104 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Rollins Epperly
16 books11 followersElizabeth Rollins Epperly is a writer, professor, and administrator.
She was born in 1951 on her mother’s birthday in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her parents were passionate readers and read aloud for years to their children. A fascination with L.M. Montgomery’s writing led her to Prince Edward Island in Canada, where she became in 1969 the first student to register at the newly amalgamated University of Prince Edward Island.
She graduated with degrees in English literature (B.A., UPEI; M.A., Dalhousie University; Ph.D., University of London in England), specializing in 19th Century British novels and poetry. She taught at Memorial University of Newfoundland and UPEI. At UPEI, she founded the L.M. Montgomery Institute, served as UPEI’s first woman president, and became Professor Emerita of English.
She published two books on Anthony Trollope before daring, in 1992, to publish The Fragrance of Sweet-Grass, the first full-length critical study of all Montgomery’s novels. Never out of print, it was reissued with a new preface in 2014. The biennial international L. M. Montgomery Institute conferences, which she began in 1994, are credited with anchoring Montgomery studies.
In addition to dozens of essays and book chapters, she has published books on Montgomery’s photography, scrapbooks, letters, and Canadian context. She has served as curator for real-time and virtual exhibitions and has pursued Montgomery research in Sweden, Japan, Spain, Scotland, and China as well as in the US and Canada.
Power Notes, a creative non-fiction narrative describing her university presidency (to be published in 2017), is an invitation to consider power and story in new ways.
She was born in 1951 on her mother’s birthday in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Her parents were passionate readers and read aloud for years to their children. A fascination with L.M. Montgomery’s writing led her to Prince Edward Island in Canada, where she became in 1969 the first student to register at the newly amalgamated University of Prince Edward Island.
She graduated with degrees in English literature (B.A., UPEI; M.A., Dalhousie University; Ph.D., University of London in England), specializing in 19th Century British novels and poetry. She taught at Memorial University of Newfoundland and UPEI. At UPEI, she founded the L.M. Montgomery Institute, served as UPEI’s first woman president, and became Professor Emerita of English.
She published two books on Anthony Trollope before daring, in 1992, to publish The Fragrance of Sweet-Grass, the first full-length critical study of all Montgomery’s novels. Never out of print, it was reissued with a new preface in 2014. The biennial international L. M. Montgomery Institute conferences, which she began in 1994, are credited with anchoring Montgomery studies.
In addition to dozens of essays and book chapters, she has published books on Montgomery’s photography, scrapbooks, letters, and Canadian context. She has served as curator for real-time and virtual exhibitions and has pursued Montgomery research in Sweden, Japan, Spain, Scotland, and China as well as in the US and Canada.
Power Notes, a creative non-fiction narrative describing her university presidency (to be published in 2017), is an invitation to consider power and story in new ways.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 17, 2024
A lovely and thorough explanation of the contents of Montgomery's scrapbook pages, very insightful! The only thing I wish is that the commentary was on the accompanying page to the scrapbook page it was talking about, it became a bit hard to follow when the pages would get out of order.
May 23, 2015
This book is FASCINATING. I'm just staggered that Maud kept such detailed scrapbooks so long ago, and that they were preserved--and now the world can read/look at them! I need to buy this book. I was only able to get partway through it before needing to return it to the library, but I will be looking for a copy to own for myself.
June 3, 2021
Lucy Maud Montgomery's scrapbooks reveal her passion for poetry and beautiful, fashionable clothes and Prince Edward Island - all affections that were shared by the beloved character that she created: Anne of Green Gables. Montgomery also loved cats. Anne had cats in the later books, but Emily of New Moon was the more devoted cat lover. The scrapbooks show that Montgomery's soul was filled to overflowing with the joy of youthful friendships and love of her home in PEI. This is the material that she used in her writing, and the scrapbooks burst with her ambition to find the meaning and resonance in her passions and bring it to her stories and novels. These scrapbooks could only belong to a writer: the sentimental style of the time was undercut by Montgomery's inclusion of funny stories, and her penchant for putting funeral and wedding notices together. This ironic sensibility was fully developed in the 'Anne' books where Anne's excessive romanticism was always being turned upside down by comic events.
Elizabeth Rollins Epperly wrote the commentary on the scrapbook. I found that some of her references to Montgomery's life were a little vague; she writes of difficult romances but does not fully explain the problems. I think some of her analysis was a bit stretched. Rollins Epperly suggests an irony in the placement of certain entries that may or may not have been in Montgomery's mind. But in the end the scrapbooks are dominated by Montgomery's heart and soul and youthful ambitions, and any reader will come away with a strong sense of the forces that made Montgomery one of the great writers for young people (and all other ages).
Elizabeth Rollins Epperly wrote the commentary on the scrapbook. I found that some of her references to Montgomery's life were a little vague; she writes of difficult romances but does not fully explain the problems. I think some of her analysis was a bit stretched. Rollins Epperly suggests an irony in the placement of certain entries that may or may not have been in Montgomery's mind. But in the end the scrapbooks are dominated by Montgomery's heart and soul and youthful ambitions, and any reader will come away with a strong sense of the forces that made Montgomery one of the great writers for young people (and all other ages).
Want to read
November 4, 2009Hooray! My book from Amazon arrived today. Not quite as exciting as bringing home one of the copies I saw while on PEI, but definitely cheaper! And the lovely scrapbook pages look just the same in any event. I'm pouring over them with delicious glee.
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February 3, 2019Read Pg 1-61
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews