The Years Before "Anne"

Kelly L. Green is a freelance writer living in Ajax, Ontario.

The 1991 version of The Years Before “Anne” is a reprint of a work
originally published in 1974 by the Prince Edward Island Heritage
Foundation. As would be expected, the volume has the worshipful tone
typical of most discussions of L.M. Montgomery, who is arguably
Canada’s best-known and most-loved literary figure.

Unfortunately, Bolger combines reverence for his subject with tedious
prose and wagonloads of inconsequential detail, such as an exhaustive
discussion of Montgomery’s father’s social associations in Prince
Albert, Saskatchewan. This makes the book difficult reading for all but
dyed-in-the-wool “Anne fans”—of whom, of course, there are
millions.

Bolger partly makes up for this obsession with trivialities by drawing
heavily on Montgomery’s early poems, essays, stories, and letters.
Much of this material was previously unpublished. The letters and the
photographs sprinkled throughout the book evoke romantic images of a
well-bred young woman growing up in a pastoral, religious, and
articulate society. Montgomery’s essays give us a different view,
however, showing her to have been a “clever, ambitious” girl with a
biting wit who went to college “to have her mind broadened.”

For all its flaws, Bolger’s work will satisfy lovers of
Montgomery’s work completely on one very significant point—it proves
without a doubt that L.M. Montgomery’s own personality was the life
force behind the much-loved Anne Shirley of Green Gables.