09/07/2026
Anne of Green Gables was my favorite book when I was a pr***en. I loved everything about her and I can’t imagine if Ms Montgomery hadn’t been persistent in trying to get it printed. All of the “Anne Blythe books are wonderful, but Anne Green Gables remains one of my top 10 to this day. I would’ve been an extremely lonely girl without it.
Before Lucy Maud Montgomery was old enough to understand loss, it had already entered her life.
Her mother died from tuberculosis before Maud turned two. Her father eventually left her in the care of her maternal grandparents and moved west to build another life.
So Maud grew up in a quiet house on Prince Edward Island without brothers or sisters. Much of the time, she was alone. She talked to the trees in the orchard, gave them names, invented imaginary friends, and slowly learned how to build entire worlds inside her own mind.
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on November 30, 1874. Her grandparents’ home in Cavendish was safe, but strict. There was discipline, routine, and very little open affection. Books became her comfort, and writing became her escape.
When Maud was seven, her father moved west, and the feeling of being left behind stayed with her. As a teenager, she briefly went to live with him and his new wife, hoping she might finally belong. Instead, she felt like an outsider. Less than a year later, she returned to Prince Edward Island.
By then, Maud had learned something important: if she wanted a life of her own, she would have to build it herself.
She focused on her education, earned a teaching certificate, studied English literature, and began teaching in small local schools. During the day, she stood in front of classrooms. At night, she sat beneath lamplight and wrote stories, poems, and anything that might find its way into print.
She mailed her work to newspapers and magazines. Rejections came, followed by small acceptances, and then more. By the early 1900s, Maud had published more than one hundred short stories, but she still felt that a larger story was waiting inside her.
Then, in 1905, she opened an old notebook. Inside was a simple idea she had once written down: An elderly couple asks an orphanage for a boy. By mistake, they receive a girl.
That tiny note became Anne Shirley red-haired, talkative, imaginative, stubborn, lonely, and full of wonder. Maud poured many of her own childhood emotions into Anne and placed her directly into the landscape she knew best: Prince Edward Island.
She finished the manuscript, titled it Anne of Green Gables, and sent it away.
Publisher after publisher rejected it. Some thought it was too long, while others believed readers wouldn't care about a book centered on a young girl. Eventually, Maud grew discouraged. She placed the manuscript inside a hatbox and put it away.
For nearly two years, Anne Shirley sat in darkness. The story could easily have ended there.
But in 1907, Maud took the manuscript out again. She reread it, made revisions, and decided to try one last time. She mailed it to L. C. Page & Company in Boston, where an editor finally saw what the others had missed.
Anne of Green Gables was published in June 1908, and the little story nobody wanted became an immediate sensation. Readers fell in love with Anne, and copies traveled far beyond Prince Edward Island. Even Mark Twain praised Anne as one of the most delightful fictional children since Alice in Wonderland.
The lonely girl who once talked to orchard trees had created a character who would speak to millions.
Maud later married Presbyterian minister Ewan Macdonald and raised a family. Her life was never free from pain; she faced severe depression, family illness, the death of a stillborn son, and private struggles that continued even while her books brought joy around the world. Still, she kept writing, often reminding herself: "I am going to succeed."
By the time she passed away on April 24, 1942, Maud had written twenty novels, hundreds of short stories, and countless poems. Her books continued traveling long after she was gone into new countries, new languages, and new generations.
Perhaps the most remarkable part is how close Anne of Green Gables came to disappearing forever a rejected manuscript, a hatbox, and two years of silence before one final attempt.
Maud’s life reminds us that rejection does not mean the work lacks worth; sometimes it simply means the right person hasn't seen it yet. The story you are tempted to hide away today may become the very thing someone desperately needs tomorrow.
