Maud's House of Dreams: The Life of Lucy Maud Montgomery

Elisabeth Anne MacDonald-Murray is an assistant professor of English at
the University of Western Ontario.

Ever since Lucy Maud Montgomery published her autobiography, The Alpine
Path, readers have been as interested in her life as in those of her
fictional creations. Like many of her heroines, she was left parentless
at an early age and raised by a stern and strict older couple, her
maternal grandparents. In fact, many of the elements of Montgomery’s
own life informed her fiction: small town life in her beloved Prince
Edward Island, her long struggle to become a published author, her
seemingly perpetual optimism, and her determination to creatively make
the best of a difficult situation. In this new biography for young
adults, Janet Lunn uses the parallels between Montgomery’s life and
her fiction to chart the development of an aspiring writer as a young
girl and woman.

Drawing heavily on Montgomery’s own journals and letters, Lunn
portrays the author’s life from her earliest memory (at her mother’s
funeral when she was not yet two years old) to the eventual publication
of Anne of Green Gables and her marriage, in her mid-30s. Though no
pictures are included in the book (which is unusual for a biography
about L.M. Montgomery), Lunn’s vivid descriptions of the young
Maud’s environment and social circle serve as a tribute to her
subject’s own descriptive powers. Lunn also draws very useful
comparisons between people and places in Montgomery’s life and those
in her fiction. The result is a charming, affectionate, and entertaining
portrait of a well-loved author who “has to be called one of the
‘blessed ... above mortals.’” Highly recommended.