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| Author Lucy Maud Montgomery |
Normally Mondays feature craft-centric blog posts,
but I thought I’d change things up a bit today in order to wish Lucy Maud
Montgomery a happy 141st birthday. Young girls for well over a
hundred years now have Lucy to thank for many cherished hours spent reading
about and bonding with Anne Shirley, the heroine she created in 1908 when she
wrote Anne of Green Gables.
Anne is an eleven-year-old orphan mistakenly sent to
live with the middle-age Cuthbert siblings after they requested a young boy to
help them on their Prince Edward Island farm. Lucy based Anne and the story of
her life on a similar event she remembered from her own childhood and infused
the book with her many memories of growing up on Prince Edward Island.
You know a book has definitely stood the test of time
when after 107 years children around the world are still reading it and both
movies and television shows continue to be made from the book and its sequels. There
have also been various stage adaptations over the years, include a musical.
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| Evelyn Nesbitt |
More than 50 million copies of Anne of Green Gables have sold since the book was first published,
and it’s been translated into 20 different languages. Anne of Green Gables became so popular that Lucy went on to write a
series of sequels.
Here’s an interesting fact about Anne that I
discovered—Montgomery based Anne’s looks on Evelyn Nesbitt. If that name sounds
familiar, it’s because Evelyn was the original Gibson girl. Her face and figure
appeared nearly everywhere in the early part of the 20th century. Evelyn
was America’s first celebrity, paving the way for the likes of Paris Hilton and
Kim Kardashian. She was also indirectly responsible for what was called the
Trial of the Century back in 1906 when her jealous millionaire husband Harry K.
Thaw murdered her ex-lover, famed New York architect Stanford White.
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| Gibson Girl |
It’s ironic that the scandalous Evelyn Nesbitt was the
physical model for the sweet Anne Shirley, but as any author will tell you, when
inspiration strikes, you run with it. Generations of young girls, myself
included, are quite happy Evelyn had a hand in inspiring Lucy to create Anne.
13 comments:
Thanks for the post! One of our local PBS stations just ran the mini-series over the weekend.
Thanks for stopping by, Angela!
Montgomery's book, Emily Climbs, about a young woman who dreams of becoming a writer, is still on my bookshelf. I received it as a Christmas gift and have reread it many times. In fact, my protagonist in The Hanged Man's Noose, Emily Garland, is named after Emily of New Moon!
Fascinating, Judy! Definitely shows how some authors make an impact on us.
Would you believe I never read the story? I guess it didn't appeal to me once I could get my hands on Johanna Lindsey. :)
Oh, I love this! Thank you. The cover you put here is exactly the same one that was on my paperback copy (though mine had tape all over it because I read that book so much).
Huge fan of the Anne, Emily, and Story Girl books...
LOL, Melissa!
Cynthia, that was obviously one very well loved book.
One of my favorite childhood books. I didn't know this, thanks!
I didn't either, Cynthia. Not until I started doing a bit of research about Lucy. Fascinating, isn't it? Especially when you consider how scandalous Evelyn's life was and how wholesome a character Anne was. If you want to learn more about Evelyn, read E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime or watch the movie. The murder of her husband was labeled the Crime of the Century back then.
It's one of my favorite stories, and was a huge inspiration for me as a writer, and a person.
Thanks for stopping by, Ava!
Excellent post! Also, one of my favorite stories. When I visited PEI, I went to see Anne's house and the stage performance of Anne of Green Gables. I've also watched the series on television.
Thanks, Joanna. Glad you enjoyed it. I'd love to get to Anne's house someday.
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