L.M. Montgomery achieved international fame in her lifetime, putting Prince Edward Island and Canada on the world literary map. A prolific writer, she published some 500 short stories and poems and twenty novels. Nineteen of the novels were set on Prince Edward Island, even though she lived in Ontario for the last thirty-one years of her life.
Today, Montgomery's novels, journals, letters, short stories, and poems are read and studied by general readers and scholars from around the world. Her writing appeals to people who love beauty and to those who struggle against oppression. In the Second World War, Polish soldiers were issued copies of Montgomery's novels to take to the front. A post-war Japan turned to Anne for lessons in optimism and imagination. A musical based on Montgomery's first best-seller, Anne of Green Gables, has drawn packed houses for over twenty-five years. Recent television movies and series based on her novels have had international success and have made Montgomery a household name once again.
