Lucy Maud Montgomery books in order

Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) was a Canadian novelist, the author of Anne of Green Gables (1908), which has sold more than 50 million copies, and of 19 further novels.

She was born on 30 November 1874 at Clifton, now New London, Prince Edward Island. Her mother died when she was 21 months old and she was brought up by her maternal grandparents in Cavendish. She trained as a teacher at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, taught at Bideford, Belmont and Lower Bedeque, and studied English literature at Dalhousie University in 1895 and 1896. Anne of Green Gables was published by L.C. Page and Company of Boston on 13 June 1908 and sold more than 19,000 copies in its first five months. She stayed with Page until 1917.

In July 1911 she married the Reverend Ewan Macdonald and moved to Leaskdale, Ontario, then to Norval in 1926 and Toronto in 1935. Her other books include the Emily trilogy, starting with Emily of New Moon (1923), and the stand-alone novel The Blue Castle (1926), alongside hundreds of short stories and poems. She was appointed OBE in 1935. She died in Toronto on 24 April 1942 and was buried at Cavendish.

For collectors. The first edition of Anne of Green Gables was published by L.C. Page of Boston in June 1908: 429 pages, with a cover by George Gibbs and illustrations by M.A. and W.A.J. Claus. The L.M. Montgomery Institute notes that she had put the manuscript away after rejections before finding it again in 1907.