Prof's LM Montgomery Biography Makes Headlines
November 19, 2008 - In the News
Today's National Post features the first of three excerpts from a book about Lucy Maud Montgomery written by retired English Prof. Mary Rubio. The Gift of Wings is a biography of the literary icon. Today's piece highlights why and how Rubio became interested in Montgomery and in writing her biography.
The Gift of Wings was also reviewed this week in the Globe and Mail.
Rubio spent more than two decades doing research for The Gift of Wings, including extensive interviews with people who knew Montgomery best, including her son, friends, maids and relatives, all of whom are now deceased. She also travelled to Poland and Scotland collecting information. The book is an intimate narrative that covers Montgomery's childhood in Prince Edward Island, her adolescence, her legal fights as a world-famous author and difficulties with marriage, motherhood and her celebrity.
Rubio is one of the pre-eminent Montgomery experts in the world, having been asked by Montgomery's son, Stuart Macdonald, to edit his mother's personal journals. She and retired English professor Elizabeth Waterston edited and published five volumes of The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery.
Montgomery published 22 books of fiction during her lifetime and kept extensive journals from the time she was 14. U of G is home to the largest collection of original Montgomery memorabilia in Canada, including manuscripts, her handwritten journals, scrapbooks, handiwork, photo albums, legal and business papers and letters.
