Original Anne is now available
Scholar edits handwritten manuscript
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s handwritten manuscript for Anne of Green Gables has made its way to shelves 111 years after the original book was released.
Carolyn Strom Collins, a lifelong fan of Montgomery’s work and scholar at the L.M. Montgomery institute at the University of Prince Edward Island, edited the handwritten manuscript, which features sections scratched out, notes Montgomery made to herself and completely altered plot details.
First published in 1908 by L.C. Page & Co., Anne of Green Gables has since sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into at least 36 languages, becoming a staple in many school courses. Montgomery wrote several sequels, and the books have inspired movies and TV series as well as a long-running stage musical, with productions in P.E.I. and around the world.
The first manuscript Strom Collins saw was for Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside, after it was made available for the University of Guelph’s library.
“I thought immediately, this must be done for Anne of Green Gables because it’s of course, the best known of Montgomery’s work,” she told CBC.
Strom Collins has previously compiled an annotated bibliography of Montgomery’s short stories, poems and long-lost stories that had not been read in more than a century.
She had the opportunity to first see the manuscript for Anne of Green Gables in 1992 while on a tour of P.E.I. She said it was in a dark room, where no flash photography is allowed.
Strom Collins received permission to photograph all 844 pages of the manuscript, which were then copied and used for the book, though not every page has content related to Anne or made the final edit of the book.
“It gives you a little chill, in a way, a little thrill because you know that was her pride and joy. She touched those pages, she wrote with pen and ink,” Strom Collins said.
Strom Collins says she has loved the book since childhood, but continues to admire it as an adult.
“I think when you’re an adult you can really appreciate L.M. Montgomery’s gift for irony and for humour and injecting all those neat things into the text that maybe you missed as a child,” Strom Collins said.