L.M. Montgomery; Extraordinary Canadians

Extraordinary Canadians

by Jane Urquhart

New material about the private life of Lucy Maud Montgomery has prompted a searching look at the beloved author of Anne of Green Gables . While her fictional characters inhabited a world where love and close community bonds overcame all tribulations, Montgomery's real life was marked by grief and loneliness. Married to a clergyman who suffered from a debilitating mental illness, Montgomery struggled to keep up appearances in a Victorian society that valued propriety at all costs. As she aged, depression engulfed her; nonetheless, throughout her life, she maintained her prolific output of fiction, attracting ever-increasing numbers of fans. Acclaimed novelist Jane Urquhart has written several novels centring on the role of the artist. Here, she explores the life of a woman whose successful literary career broke the boundaries set for women of her time, but who could not escape the societal strictures of Victorian Canada or her own demons.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Canada, History

162 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2009

About the author

Jane Urquhart (June 21, 1949 - ) is a Canadian novelist and poet.

She is the author of seven internationally acclaimed novels entitled, The Whirlpool, Changing Heaven, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers, A Map of Glass, and Sanctuary Line.

The Whirlpool received the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Away was winner of the Trillium Book Award and a finalist for the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. The Underpainter won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction and was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

The Stone Carvers was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award, and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. A Map of Glass was a finalist for a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book.

She is also the author of a collection of short fiction, Storm Glass, and four books of poetry, I Am Walking in the Garden of His Imaginary Palace, False Shuffles, The Little Flowers of Madame de Montespan, and Some Other Garden. Her work has been translated into numerous foreign languages.
Urquhart has received the Marian Engel Award, Calgary's Bob Edwards Award and the Harbourfront Festival Prize, and is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. In 2005 she was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Recently, she was named the 2007 Banff Distinguished Writer.

Urquhart has received numerous honorary doctorates from Canadian universities and has been writer-in-residence at the University of Ottawa and at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Toronto, and the University of Guelph.

She has also given readings and lectures in Canada, Britain, Europe, the U.S.A., and Australia.
In 2007 she edited and published The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, and in 2009 she published a biography of

Lucy Maud Montgomery as part of Penguin’s “Extraordinary Canadians” series.

Urquhart lives in Northumberland County, Ontario, Canada, and occasionally in Ireland.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Urq...

Reviews

[Alan (The Lone Librarian) Teder]

Searching for Lucy Maud Montgomery 🍁
A review of the Penguin Canada paperback edition (September 4, 2012) of the Penguin Canada hardcover original (September 22, 2009).

Though presented in an engaging and ultimately winning manner, the anguish of the child who does not feel loved is present in many of the books, as is the hardship encountered by talented young women who are trying to live a creative life. This may not be full shade, but Montgomery's work is not by any means all about sunlight either.

I have a somewhat indirect connection to Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942). In my youth in the 1960s my family would regularly drive to Udora, a small village about a 1+ hour drive northeast of Toronto. Udora was the site of an Estonian summer children's camp and of the cottages and camping sites of many Canadian Estonians. The best route at the time was along Regional Road 1 which passed through Leaskdale, Ontario and the one-time home of Montgomery. I would see the historic plaque flash by as we drove along and each time I would try to read an additional row or several words of it. We never actually stopped to read the sign or tour the house.


Lucy Maud Montgomery's historic plaque in front of her Leaskdale, Ontario home. Image sourced from Lucy Maud Montgomery Was Here.

Those memories all came back to me when I was listening to Jane Urquhart at the 2025 Lakefield Literary Festival. Aside from talking about her own recent novel In Winter I Get Up at Night (2024), Urquhart talked about how her own love of reading had been inspired by the books of Montgomery, which was later reinforced by her studies with Elizabeth Waterston.

Waterson was a foundational figure in studies of Montgomery with books such as Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery (2009) and Kindling Spirits: Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables (Canadian Fiction Studies) by Elizabeth Waterston (1993) and as co-editor of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery (1986-1988). When John Ralston Saul asked Jane Urquhart to write a contribution for the Extraordinary Canadians series, Urquhart answered that Lucy Maud Montgomery was the only person she could write about.

Urquhart's book is not a straight biography, although most of the biographical details are well covered. It is more of an appreciation which follows the path of Montgomery's life which was one of being orphaned by her mother and then abandoned by her father. Her rather strict upbringing by her grandparents on Prince Edward Island becomes the real-life story behind the fictional young girls adopted into homes who try to make their way in the world while not always feeling loved and accepted.

Montgomery's eventual marriage to a Presbyterian minister was beset by the difficulties of the latter's religious obsessions with after-life damnation. This entailed regular retreats to sanatoriums and then Montgomery's commitment to caregiving in the home. Her fictional worlds were an escape for her and even her supposed non-fiction writing in her journals was possibly fictionalized through re-writing after the fact. She was well aware that her fame as an author would mean that the diaries would eventually be published.

This was quite a revelatory read and gave quite a lot of insight into Montgomery's life and the struggles behind the seemingly light-hearted books that she wrote which have immortalized her characters in Canadian literature and popularized them throughout the world.

Trivia and Links
This book is part of the Extraordinary Canadians series, curated by John Ralston Saul. The GR series shows only 16 books and is missing Rudy Wiebe's Big Bear (2008) and André Pratte's Extraordinary Canadians Wilfrid Laurier (2011).

[Novelesque Life]

RATING: 4 STARS

(Review Not on Blog)

This book is a part of the Extraordinary Canadians series. The series looks at famous Canadians and how they made an impact on Canada. They are also written by other great Canadians writers so this is definitely my cup of tea. This is my first book in the series, but it will not be the last. Canadian fiction writer, Jane Urquhart uses research by Mary Henley Rubio to write a brief biography on fellow writer, Lucy Maud Montgomery. I read this book because I knew I would not finish my book club book, Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings (600+ pages) so I decided to read this to at least get the gist of Montgomery's life. As I started this book it really left me intrigued by Maud. In my head I had this picture of who she might be, and this blew it out of the water. Her life wasn't like Emily or Anne. She had great successes but also many blows. Now I am determined to finish Mary Henley Rubio's book!

[Daniel Kukwa]

Put the life of one of Canada's most famous & fascinating writers into the hands of one of Canada's best novelists...and the end result is astonishingly powerful for such a slim volume. There are many exceptional LM Montgomery biographies available, but for a sampler that captures the beautiful & terrible life that the "Anne of Green Gables" author lead, this is quite suberb.

[George Ilsley]

This compact biography of L.M. Montgomery, most famous for her work Anne of Green Gables, reveals a sad, complicated figure.

Born in Prince Edward Island, Montgomery was raised by her grandparents, an experience which flavoured many of her books — in the sense she wrote about what she wished could have happened.

Her marriage was a burden, her children were disappointments, and she signed away the rights to Anne of Green Gables without realizing what she had done (that resulted in years of bitter litigation).

I hadn't realized that Lucy Maud Montgomery's life was quite so burdensome.

The book is mostly well-done; however, I found the last section, which is a long personal story of the author's only tangentially and —eventually— related to Montgomery, to be a rather weak and unsatisfying ending to an otherwise fine short biography.

[rabbitprincess]

* * * 1/2

A highly readable look at Montgomery's life. The book is both chronological and thematic, with chapters such as "The Work", "Sleep", "In a Man's World". The themes chosen in each chapter work very well with the chronology; other biographies that take the thematic approach may fall into the trap of trying to cover the subject's entire life in every single chapter, but Urquhart restricts her themes to specific points in Montgomery's life. Of course, details and events also weave their way throughout the book, such as "Maud's" desire to immortalize her favourite places in an effort to keep them from changing, her sensitivity and struggles with depression, and of course her husband's mental health issues. Urquhart's obvious affection for her subject really shines through in the writing and makes this a very accessible work. An excellent intro to the woman behind Anne of Green Gables; recommended for fans.


This book came to my attention through a review by Irene Gammel in The Globe and Mail on November 14, 2009.

[D.A. Brown]

I do hope that in my life I never meet the esteemed Jane Urquhart.
If I did, I might be tempted to slap her in that way young girls do when they are thwarted. Full disclosure here- I've tried to read her writings and been so swamped by their impenetrability that I tossed them across the room, much as either Dorothy Parker or Mark Twain suggested.

And she is at the heart of the tiny group of "PEOPLE WHO MATTER IN CANADIAN LITERATURE", or, as I call them, FOMAs. (Friends of Margaret Atwood). I am of course fiercely jealous of this crowd and also exasperated by them as the small bunch of them assume each other is a magnificent creature and well, creative writing programs and Steven Galloway and so forth.

But I digress. This slim volume is part of the PWMICL/FOMA series of books on exemplary Canadians and I had to read this one as a lifetime LMM fan. When I did, I found the completely adult and mature epithet, 'snothead', issuing from my lips as JU takes LMMs life on and makes it petty and sad and messed up and suicidal and totally wrapped up in herself.
Apparently LMM developed asthma as an adult. Is this because of allergies? Oh no, it's from repressed feelings - and these repressions also made LMM an intolerable mother and sincerely wacky. No. Just no. Short of breath, yes.
Little is said of the numerous works published by LMM, or the joy they have brought to legions of girls and independent minded kids. Her list of books is shall I say it, much longer than JUs, and I resent fiercely the vaguely patronizing tone used throughout this book. Of course, LMM was not a FOMA, so boo.
I also find JUs take on mental illness to be condescending in the extreme. Overall, though, this book was interesting (and thankfully short unlike JUs usual knuckle-draggers), so it deserves three stars. The titles of the chapters: Work, Madness, Her death (the first chapter and completely self indulgent in JUs case) are even condescending.
Gah.
LMM wrote happy stories while enduring a challenging life. Bless her weary heart. Let's give her some credit for being able to create delight in others instead of blaming her for "covering her feelings". Sheesh.

[Maggie BB]

I did a report on Lucy Maud Montgomery once in elementary school, and have visited almost all the sites in P.E.I. related to her or her works, but I never really read a proper biography of her and couldn't have told you much about her life besides that she loved cats, married a minister, and lived in Ontario when she left P.E.I. ... this was something I've been wanting to remedy for years (being a rather ridiculous fan of her books). Found this book on sale, seemed like as good a time as any to finally get to know one of my favourite authors a bit more!

I did enjoy this biography, the way it was written in themes rather than strict chronological retelling of her life, and it felt as though it was written by someone who truly admired and enjoyed the subject. However there were times when I felt like the author was presuming I already knew Montgomery's life story, and while sometimes the details I was missing were later filled in it did take away from my enjoyment at times, and sometimes I was left unclear on what the actual events or situations were being referred to for far too long. Perhaps that was the intention of the book - to explore deeper into the themes of Montgomery's life for those who already knew the stories - in which case maybe it wasn't the best biography for me to start with. Nevertheless, I did like the book and it certainly was a nice easy read that did give me a better appreciation for the woman behind my most beloved books.

[Alexis]

A very brief look at the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery. It's sad to say that her life sucked a lot. Her mother died early in her life, and she was basically abandoned by her father and raised by her grandparents. She had a hard marriage, and lifelong problems with insomnia. She drugged herself to deal with her sleep issues and nightmares.

The book is written in beautiful prose by Jane Urquhart. She also examines the impact of L.M. Montgomery's work on Canada and other writers, and talks about how difficult it was for a woman to be a published author at this time.

I'm ashamed to say that I've only read "Anne of Green Gables." I think I would like to read some more L.M. Montgomery. I didn't really want Anne to grow up, so I might just read some of the books featuring other characters.

[Jessica]

Valutazione 3,5.

Libro molto interessante, se si vuole avere una prima infarinatura sulla travagliata vita di Lucy Maud Montgomery. Peccato che perda un po' nel finale. :(

[Susan Mclennan]

Well written (Of course!) short biography of a famous author's life.

[Paula Dembeck]

This is one of the books that make up the Extraordinary Canadians series edited by John Ralston Saul. Again I am impressed by the ability of the authors of the various books to successfully present the life and work of their chosen hero in such a small volume. For Urquhart,there was a plethora of resource material available including Montgomery’s journals, scrapbooks, fiction and photographs. Urquhart’s decision to forgo a linear biographical story in favour of presenting a themed approached has been successful in helping her to integrate the vast array of information available. However, I would say that although this volume provides an overview of Montgomery’s life, I would not proceed to investigate Montgomery’s career by starting with this book. Urquhart considers that the reader is already familiar with the author’s work and knows something of her life. So with that said, I do believe this volume adds something additional to material already available on Montgomery’s life and work .

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s life seems to have run in deep contrast to her fiction which always had happy endings. In her own life, Montgomery lost her parents early and was raised by stern grandparents who were already exhausted from raising their own six children. Maud was thrust upon them in their declining years and she was never given the love, affection or the nurturing a young child requires and she felt she deserved.

Montgomery’s fiction is happy, whereas her scrapbooks and diaries are chronicles of bad news. She kept an enduring record of her unhappiness in her journals year after year, and locked them away in cupboards and vaults. She wrote in that space about her own personal misery while what she created in her fiction travelled the world “on a warm breeze”. She wrote about the world as she felt it should be, not the way she herself experienced it, romanticizing her surroundings to make things seem better, more beautiful and safer. In her fictional worlds, Maud described a time and place where love and a sense community helped individuals overcome their personal challenges, whereas her own life was in sharp contrast to this, marked by isolation, loneliness, loss and grief. Even the sorrow in her fiction was beautiful and touching. Nothing like the ugly grief of reality.

As a young woman Montgomery was prodded and pushed to produce a large output of fiction, yet she was bilked by publishers for her royalties and set upon by male critics for her writing which they described as naïve, provincial and sentimental. As Urquhart points out, if Montgomery were still alive she would be quite satisfied knowing that those critics are among those almost completely forgotten, whereas her work is now deemed worthy of academic study. Her most well known book, “Anne of Green Gables” has sold more than 50 million copies world wide since its publication in 1908.

Maud married a clergyman with a debilitating mental illness and was forced to cope with it in private and in silence, maintaining the propriety of her role as a minister’s wife. This combine with the strain of caring for her debilitated grandmother until her death left her feeling tired, vulnerable and helpless. The first references to her depression appears after the eight year period during which she cared for her grandmother and continued in a downward spiral until her death. She had terrible problems sleeping and even when she did finally achieve that blessed state, she was engulfed in bad dreams and nightmares, reliving old and new grievances: her mother’s death, her father’s absence, her husband’s illness and her son’s misdeeds. She became increasingly despondent over time and eventually depression engulfed her completely and she is believed to have taken her own life at the age of 67.

Urquhart reminds the reader of the difficulty in determining the true thoughts and feelings of this complicated woman. She purposefully revised and rewrote her journals sometimes ten years after they were originally written, mindful that they may become public.
It is clear that Urquhart admires Montgomery and shares the effect this woman has had on many young Canadian girls. It demonstrated clearly that the rural setting of her stories which celebrated the landscape and the daily lives of the people who lived there could capture the heart and minds of a widespread public.

A very readable biography, more appreciated if you have read some of Montgomery’s fiction and some of the academic work that provides more details of her life.

[RKanimalkingdom]

The thing with nonfiction books (especially biographies/autobiographies) is that there is no way you can look at it with an objective lens. Nonfiction are true stories based on facts/discoveries/historic events/or people. The novels written about them or it (subject) must be written by someone else and here is where the issue arises. Depending on the author's mind he/she can make the novel anyway they want. They can use flowery/imagery language or be more reporter like. They can make a story out of it or just tell the events from start to end, birth to death. They can make it first person, second, third, or a mix. They can look at it from a different perspective. And finally, they can choose what to talk about (what they want to educate readers about).

Now I love Montgomery's novels. I've been reading and rereading them since I was 10-11 and her stories blew me away. With this in mind I decided to read up about her and got this book from the library. Now see I was expecting something where the author tells what Montgomery's life is like and how it effects her writing. For example, most fans already know that almost all the MC's are orphans in one way or another because Lucy herself was kind of an orphan. She had a rough, strict, and religious upbringing and her only output was through writing which is a common theme in her novels. The problem I was having was that the author was only telling what happened in Lucy's life both private and writing(financially) alike. But she never told how any of the books came to life. What were the inspirations she took from the real life and applied to her writing world. Basically focusing more on her writing career. That was what I wanted. Instead I got something that I already knew about because I read her Wikipedia page. Also, Montgomery has written many novels but the only ones we hear about are Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, and Story Girl. What about Mistress Pat or The Road to Yesterday? What about despite the fact that the author says that Maud had not written more gothic "adult" novels she did indeed write two (maybe more?) novels that were aimed for adults as the characters were adults dealing with adult-like problems. Those books being A Tangled Web and MY FAVOURITE, The Blue Castle.

Overall, if you're looking for a deeper look into Maud's personal life then you should read this book but if you want more information on where her stories get their inspirations then you're going to have to find another.

[Jmegan]

I chose this book because I love both L.M. Montgomery and Jane Urquhart, and found it to be a good, quick read. It's very short (only 150 pages) and is arranged thematically, rather than chronologically. I got the sense that it was intended for readers who are already familiar with Montgomery's life, and who are looking for some new details or a different perspective.

I enjoyed it quite a lot, but rated it a bit lower because I would have preferred a more in-depth study - but of course that is not the intention of the book. The good news is, it has piqued my interest in L.M. Montgomery, and prompted me to seek out a more traditional biography for further information about her life and writing.

[Karen]

Jane Urquhart provides an interesting overview of the “wretched” and “empty” life of one of Canada’s writing icons, Lucy Maud Montgomery. Ms. Montgomery’s struggles, both professional and personal, were many and her conservative upbringing as well as societal limitations of the time added to her burdens. It is heartbreaking to think that the happiness she evoked in her millions of adoring readers through her delightful stories was something that seemed always to be beyond her own reach! She was an integral part of my childhood literary upbringing and, having read this brief biography, I will certainly understand and appreciate her books all the more.

[Stacy]

I hated the intro, where Urquhart puts herself in the room with the dying author. Other than that, it was quite readable, considering that, of the Urquhart books I have read, I only like Changing Heaven. Also, I don't read many biographies. Over all, it made me think over LMM's life and consider the contrasts between her writing and her horrible life. It also made me realize that I am missing the last diary! How could this be? and it sent me to my shelves, where I found a LMM book of short stories that I am now reading.

[Jeffrey Sylvester]

This was a weak 3. I wasn't a big fan of the author's style and I felt Maud's life somewhat depressing. It seemed mostly about how she got screwed (not literally) by her publisher and was actually more depressed than anyone could have imagined once biographers/academics got a hold of her diary. More on her contribution would have been welcome. Also, it was quite descriptive writing which I'm sure many like whereas I'm more of a "give me the information" type of person. So, not bad; not great.

[Loraxe]

It was an interesting read, she obviously thought about her subject deeply and researched it well. I had the usual issues though. In some parts she seems to almost naively think she knows everything about LMM based on her journals, yet at others she takes great pains to point out that of course, LMM mainly wrote about the lows in her life and left out the highs and maybe more importantly the middles. I am not sure it adds anything to the impressive body of writings already out there.

[M.A.]

It took me awhile to even find this book, but it was well worth the wait. I read all of Montgomery's books many years ago, not when I was a child; however, but when I was a young woman in my twenties. So, I found Urquhart's book, a sort of biography, quite poignant. I had no idea how difficult and sad Lucy Maud's life was. I'd like to read more books from this "Extraordinary Canadians" series.

[Erika Nerdypants]

Short but interesing biography of L M Montgomery. I knew very little about her prior to reading this, and while it didn't do everything to satisfy my curiosity (it wasn't intended to), it certainly whet my appetite to go in search for more. I'm planning a trip to the library in the near future to check out her collected journals, on which much of this book is based.

[Marlies]

Very interesting. I didn't know much at all about L.M. Montgomery. I was intrigued by her life and now I want to read more of her books. She was a haunted lady: she didn't sleep well and held a lot inside for appearances. She said NO to a true love, and ended up with a husband who eventually went mad. A sad life story.

[Val]

I enjoyed this book...a quick read. I hadn't read anything about LMM's life before, but I've read most of her novels. This made me want to go back and re-read my favorites, as well as read those I haven't yet read. It will be a different experience after learning what a difficult life LMM had.

[Deidre]

Already a fan of L.M. Montgomery, I was excited to read this book. Jane Urquhart did a wonderful job painting a picture of Maud's life. It was very well written and so enjoyable I finished it in a day!

[Meaghan Steeves]

I loved this in that it wasn't a typical biography. Told like a story, it showed a real depth of perception into the life of this brilliant woman. I learned many new things about her, and had no idea how sad she was. I'm just grateful she came up with Anne, one of my favourite literary heroines.

[Pam]

This is one of a series of books on Extraordinary Canadians. Urquhart does a lovely concise explanation about LM Montgomery, her life her writing her rather pathetic final few years.
I read a great many of her novels as a child. I'm compelled to reread one or two.

[Emily]

A short biography about the life of L.M. Montgomery. I learned a few interesting things about this "extraordinary Canadian" and how her works came to be. I wasn't a total fan of the writing style in this one, but overall I enjoyed learning more about the author of some of my favourite books.

[Autumn]

A short look at Montgomery's life that has whet my appetite to read more about her.

[Nancy]

I enjoyed every bit of it. Loved Jane Urquhart's writing, love L.M. Montgomery's story.
One of my favorite biography.

[Virginia]

so-so could have been better rather depressing

[Brenton]

A gorgeous biography.

[Catherine]

I didn't like how this was organized, and I found it lacked insight and was repetitious. However, I really liked the last chapter, which is why I gave it a 3 star rating, not a two star rating.