Green Gables Author Suffered Depression, Suicide

A book of essays to be published mid-2010 by the University of Toronto Press will look at Lucy Maud Montgomery’s best known work, as well as pieces of her own tortured life. From CanWest News Service:

The scholarly collection of essays, co-edited by Ryerson University professor Irene Gammel -- Canada research chair in modern literature and culture -- follows a recent revival of interest in the Anne Shirley phenomenon with the 100th anniversary of the 1908 publication of author Lucy Maud Montgomery’s landmark work.

In Anne’s World: A New Century of Anne of Green Gables, to be published this year by University of Toronto Press, contributors probe the “global industry” in Anne tourism, the multitude of film, television and stage productions inspired by the story, and the “timeless and ongoing appeal of L.M. Montgomery’s writing” nearly 70 years after her 1942 suicide by a drug overdose at age 67.

The full piece is here. January looks at Gammel’s 2008 biography of Montgomery here and Budge Wilson’s 2008 Before Green Gables here.