Classic Wednesday: Lucy Maud
You know how sometimes you just need to read something by an old friend? When I say old friend, I mean, an author whose books you’ve adored since you were ten or eleven, someone familiar and kind, someone who could never disappoint you.
For me, Lucy Maud Montgomery is that friend. She wrote about a trillion books when she was alive (from 1874 to 1942). Because she was writing at the turn of the 20th century and later, her style is pretty contemporary and very easy to digest.
The thing is, while she was most famous for the Anne of Green Gables series, and also well-known for her Emily of New Moon trilogy, she wrote a lot of other books that were eventually forgotten. Some of them are out of print, some of them are out of vogue, and some of them are just a bit dusty.
It’s time we changed that. I want to recommend about a million of her books, but for now I’ll stick to her short stories. Lucy Maud was a brilliant short story writer, the kind of gal who could give you all the plot you needed in a few short pages. You know that feeling you get at the end of a novel, like you’re sad to part with the characters, but happy to have experienced something with them? Well, with Lucy Maud’s short story collections you get that about twenty times per book. Think about it!
LM Montgomery came up with some of my favorite quotes: “scope for the imagination,” “depths of despair,” and, best of all, “tomorrow is a new day, fresh with no mistakes in it yet.” This was a woman who had heart, and who was able to craft a turn of phrase we all recognize almost a century later.
Let’s start with Akin to Anne, a book with short stories about orphans and other children who are neglected or unloved. Well, they may start out that way. Here are the stories you’ve got to got to got to read:
• Charlotte’s Quest: A young girl who doesn’t fit in at home goes off in search of a new mother, with the aid of a village woman known as Witch Penny.
• Marcella’s Reward: Two sisters, one ill and the other little better than a slave, are living with their unpleasant aunt in a dreadful big city. Marcella is the workhorse, and her dear sister Patty is gravely ill and hovering near death. See how Lucy Maud tidies up this little mess.
• The Running Away of Chester: An orphan boy who is worked to the bone and mistreated by his “aunt” Harriet decides to run away and seek his own fame and fortune. Morals abound, for children and adults alike.
My other recommendation to you all is Among the Shadows, Lucy Maud’s collection of stories about ghosts and criminals, not all of whom are redeemed. As you may know from reading some of Montgomery’s novels, she was fascinated with all things supernatural, and loved to weave something of that sort in whenever she could.
From this collection, I will recommend only one story. Not because the others aren’t worthy reading, but because this particular work is so perfect. Some Fools and a Saint is sure to send chills up your spine. And it’s nice and long for a short story, too.
Alas, both these collections may be hard to find, as they are, to my knowledge, out of print. However! There are folks on Amazon Marketplace who will sell them to you. And on eBay. And you can even go over to the Strand or another used bookstore, where you just might be so lucky as to dig one up. Yes, dears, you can get your hands on a copy of either of these books if you put your back into it. Or you could check out any of her other zillion books, almost all of which are good as gold.
June 4th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I’ve read that LMM liked to be called Maud, and I always found that fascinating … like she REJECTED her inner Lucy.
Also, has anyone here been to the AoGG theme park in Japan? So weird … so fascinating …
June 4th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Maybe LMM realized that one day there would be a terribly embarrassing television show called “I Love Lucy,” which, while classic, is something I can’t watch without wanting to cry for poor Lucille Ball.
What is AoGG? OMG. Anne of Green Gables? There’s a THEME PARK??? We so totally have to go. You and me, Miss Jami B.
By the way, folks, I’d like to introduce Miss Jami as YA New York’s new film correspondent! Jami will be reviewing film adaptations of YA literature. Of course we’ll introduce her more formally down the road, along with a complete bio of this LA screenwriter extraordinaire.
June 4th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Her best book is the little known A Tangled Web. So sad, yet everything ends perfectly happily. It actually made me CRY! And I never cry. Ever. I am nicknamed the Ice Queen for a reason. Yet the book is also hilariously funny. Probably my favorite book of alll time.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Hmm. You know, I like A Tangled Web, but it didn’t strike a chord with me as much as her other books did. Even, say, Magic for Marigold was more enchanting for me. But I am glad to see that there are other LMM freaks out there, who, like me, have hunkered down and zoomed through even her most obscure works.
Then again, if I were to conduct a poll, it would be like so:
Which do Lucy Maud series do you prefer?
A. Anne of Green Gables
B. Emily of New Moon
C. Pat of Silverbush
I think the answer is obvious, but I’m willing to bet lots of folks will go in a very different direction from the one I’d choose …
June 4th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
At least two of these stories are in the public domain (in the US) and available online free of charge: Marcella’s Reward and The Running Away of Chester.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:21 am
not to be predictable at all, nomenclaturally speaking, but i think my favourite lucy maud series would be emily of new moon, all the way.
i loved anne, but the emily books were the ones i re-read till they were tattered, and accidentally left out under the swing-set and re-read even after they were waterlogged.
i also like the trimness of a simple trilogy - never overstepping the story’s reach. none of this george lucas crap
though that’s ever so slightly off topic and probably belongs in a review of indiana jones …
June 5th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Emily dearest,
The Emily series is my favorite, too. It’s funny; Anne went and grew up a bit too much for me (when I was ten, at least) after book three. But you’re right about the New Moon series being nice and trim.
Whenever I’m in a mood, and I want to cry my eyes out, I just read Emily’s Quest. Because really, that one is a tearjerker. I think LMM wrote it just to make us all weep for a couple hundred pages straight.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
My favorite Montgomery is the little known The Blue Castle. It was a total case of right book right time. I was feeling very single (I was 21 or so at the time) and felt like nothing was quite going the way I wanted. I was also in need of something to read having just finished the last one I was in (I read multiple books at once to avoid this).
It’s about a girl named Valancy who is, at 29, single, friendless and the joke of her family. Upon recieving a bill of health which condemned her to death within a year, she set about living her life to the fullest, including finding a way out of her family home.
The ending is a bit obvious, but when I finished it, I felt better about life.
What more can you ask for?
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Oh, I love that book! In fact, it’s sitting here in front of me right now, ‘cos I had to move all my books off the shelves in the other room to prepare for the electrical contractors. Grr.