My Dear Mr. M

by L.M. Montgomery, Francis W.P. Bolger, Elizabeth Rollins Epperly (Editor)

Letters written over a period of nearly forty years by the author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, express her views on literature, daily life, and world events

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Classics, History, Canada

212 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Lucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author whose novels, stories, essays and poems made her one of the most widely read writers in Canadian literary history. Publishing under the name L. M. Montgomery, she achieved international recognition with the novel Anne of Green Gables, released in 1908, which quickly became a bestseller and introduced readers to the imaginative orphan Anne Shirley. The success of the book transformed Montgomery from a schoolteacher and magazine contributor into a celebrated literary figure whose work reached audiences far beyond Canada. Raised on Prince Edward Island, she drew deeply on its landscapes, rural communities, and storytelling traditions, turning the island into the setting for many of her novels. The popularity of Anne of Green Gables led to numerous sequels, including Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island, establishing a beloved series that followed Anne from childhood to adulthood. Montgomery continued to write steadily throughout her life, producing twenty novels and more than a thousand short stories poems and essays. Her fiction often centered on young women, personal growth, and the emotional ties between people and place, combining gentle humor with reflections on memory, imagination, and belonging. Although she enjoyed enormous popularity, Montgomery also faced personal difficulties, including long periods of depression and the strain of caring for her husband, a Presbyterian minister who struggled with mental illness. Writing became both a profession and a refuge, allowing her to transform memories of childhood and observation of everyday life into vivid storytelling. In addition to the Anne series, she created other notable works, including the Emily novels and several stand alone stories that explored identity, creativity, and attachment to home. Her books were translated widely and attracted devoted readers around the world, helping shape the international image of Prince Edward Island as a place of pastoral beauty and warm community life. Scholars later studied her extensive journals letters and manuscripts, which revealed the complex inner life behind the cheerful tone of many of her books. By the time of her death in 1942, Montgomery had become one of the most successful and influential authors in Canadian literature. Her stories about imagination, resilience, and the search for belonging continue to inspire readers of all ages, and Anne Shirley remains one of the most recognizable characters in children's fiction. Through generations of readers, Montgomery's work has encouraged appreciation for storytelling, nature, and the emotional richness of ordinary life. Her legacy also includes a vast body of diaries and correspondence that document the challenges faced by a professional woman writer in the early twentieth century. Institutions such as the L. M. Montgomery Institute have continued to examine her influence on literature culture and tourism, particularly on Prince Edward Island, where sites associated with her fiction attract visitors from many countries. Adaptations of Anne of Green Gables for film, television, and theatre have introduced new audiences to her stories, ensuring that her characters remain part of global popular culture. Though critical opinion once dismissed her as merely a writer for children, later scholarship recognized the depth of her themes and the enduring craft of her storytelling. Today she is remembered as a central figure in Canadian literature whose imaginative vision gave voice to the beauty of rural life while celebrating the hopes of young dreamers who search for belonging.

Reviews

[Sarah TheAromaofBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure exactly how you rate a bunch of letter someone wrote to someone else, other than by how much enjoyment and interest I derived from them. Written over a span of almost 40 years, I personally found these letters to be an intriguing glimpse into Montgomery's personal thoughts and perspectives. However, I am not sure I would have gotten as much from this collection if I hadn't already read some biographical material about Montgomery's life - there isn't really any background information here, so if you aren't familiar with the arc of Montgomery's personal story, I'm not sure you would glean as much from these letters. There are frequently large gaps in time between them, and they have been edited as well. So if you've just read Anne of Green Gables and then pick this book up, you probably won't find it as interesting as you will if you've already done a bit of background research on Montgomery herself.

I particularly enjoyed reading some of her thoughts on her books as she was writing them or just after sending them to print. That she put "more of herself" into Emily than any of her other heroines, or that she wrote Jane of Lantern Hill just because she wanted to.

Throughout the collection, Montgomery's wry sense of humor is evident. I completely agreed with her on the concept of "free verse" poetry - or "shredded prose" as she called it. Her "poem" about the topic honestly cracked me up, maybe because it conveys my own perspective on the topic so neatly -

I feel
Very much
Like taking
Its unholy perpetrators
By the hair
Of their heads,
(If they have any hair)
And dragging them around
The yard
A few times
And then cutting them
Into small, irregular pieces
And burying them
In the depths of the blue sea.
They are without form
And void,
Or at least
The stuff they produce
Is.
They are too lazy
To hunt up rhymes
And that
is all
That is the matter with them

!!!!! Pure gold!

I also found the letter explaining Montgomery's lawsuits with Page & Co. quite interesting, although that's another section that wouldn't have made as much sense if I hadn't already read about it in depth in her biography. But her personal words on the matter were very interesting, I thought.

All in all, I enjoyed this side of Montgomery's personality and thoughts, finding these letters to be engaging and very readable.

[Brenton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I set out to read through My Dear Mr. M with a view to a series of quotations from the letter collection on my blog. The problem is that they are so eminently quotable! I know that Montgomery's journals are immensely important historical pieces with a literary quality of their own. My sense with these MacMillan letters is that they are a pleasure delayed and literary challenge for Montgomery, a correspondence based in real friendship. The result for a reading brain like mine, in any case, is that I have marginal notes on almost every page. I love this collection.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dad bought this book for me when I was in high school and I was thrilled.

[Lệ Lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There are a few things in my life I have prized as much as your friendship and letters. Remember me as I used to be, not as I am now.”

Maud’s letters to MacMillan are sentimental, she meticulously described what happened during her time and by doing so, she also proved herself a prolific author. Even during her tough time, she still has her way around words. The friendship between these two is so precious and rare, they found comfort in each other and shared letters for the longest time — which makes me envious of a friendship like that. I wish I could read more of Mr. MacMillan’s letters (unfortunately they didn’t survive).
Through these letters, we see a lovely Maud who always yearned for home, nostalgic as she grew older and yet not at all pessimistic as many biographies were written about her. At least that’s what I’m hoping for it to be true. And only a friend like MacMillan can bring that part of her out, and I’m glad these letters survived as living proof that she was living a full life somehow.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

These letters are so quintessentially Montgomery. It's like her life in snapshots - an abridged version of her journals. She has such a way with words. It's a bit painful to see her grappling with her own and her family's struggles while trying to put a brave face on things. Her grief over the loss of Frede and Lucky are so palpable on these pages. A perfect introduction to Montgomery's more autobiographical writing for people not quite ready to dive into her journals.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, printed in 1980, is so timely for 2020: the inner struggles of LM Montgomery, the world's struggle with pandemics and wars, the business of publishing, and throughout it all, the anchoring effect a friendship can have, even if by mail. Reading this has piqued my curiosity to read LMM's journals.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I so enjoyed reading this collection of letters written by Montgomery to her longtime correspondent G.B. MacMillan. From the exchange of ideas and book recommendations, to accounts of everyday experiences and struggles, I got such a different sense of who LMM was, vs. the view I had from reading other biographical and even autobiographical writing about her life. The later letters are heartbreaking, but overall her tone felt so much warmer and open here (as opposed to her autobiography, The Alpine Path). I feel like I have a fuller picture of what Maud was like, as her personality seemed to shine through: especially her sense of humor and her knack for recounting a good story.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an excellent selection of letters, and spanned from the pre-Green Gables days up until Montgomery's death. You get to experience the whole arc of her life; through these letters we see Montgomery achieve fame, get married, become a mother, lose friends, and eventually lose her health. It's a very different read from The Green Gables Letters: From L. M. Montgomery to Ephraim Weber 1905-1909, which stops when Montgomery is still in good health and spirits.

I also felt these didn't go as deep into some topics as the set to Ephraim Weber did, but that might just be the selection. Something is missing too, in seeing only one side of the correspondence.

I particularly enjoyed Montgomery's predictions on the future of letters:

In a few generations letters will be obsolete. Everyone will talk to absent friends the world over by radio. It will be nice; but something will be lost with letters. The world can't eat its cake and have it too. And none of these things really "save time." They only fill it more breathlessly full. That may be all right for the young. But I look back to the old '90's with the feeling that they were a nice unhurried leisurely time.

and this, which relates so precisely to our time:

New inventions crowd on each others heels--each more amazing than the last. But the trouble is--no one is happier or better because of them.

I loved seeing the inner thoughts of one of my heroes, and I look forward to the third volume of her letters I have waiting for me.

[Denise of Ingleside]

loved it, very much, excellent book, shows Maud in a different light :)

[Denise of Ingleside]

very good book, loved it very much, love to re read it