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.
from Amazon.com.
