The Blue Castle

L. M. Montgomery (1874-1942), a noted Canadian writer, was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island as the only offspring of John Montgomery and Clara Woolner Macneill. As a child, Montgomery found solace in her imagination, nature, writing and books. During her school days in Prince Albert, Montgomery published her first work, a poem entitled "On Cape LeForce," which was published by a Prince Edward Island Newspaper. Throughout her time spent in Cavendish, Montgomery wrote numerous poems, serials and stories that she submitted without fail to British, American and Canadian magazines. Though she received many rejections, Montgomery achieved a life for herself as a writer. In 1905, Montgomery published Anne of Green Gables, despite receiving multiple rejections from publishers. It was an immediate success which launched a fruitful writing career for her. She married Reverend Ewan Macdonald in 1911 and together the couple had three sons, one of whom was stillborn. Upon her husband's retirement from the ministry in 1935, Montgomery and Macdonald moved to Toronto in order to be close to their family. A few short years later in 1942, Montgomery died and was returned to Prince Edward Island where she was buried in Cavendish cemetery, close to her home.