Commentary
You never know what peace is until you walk on the shores or in the fields or along the winding red roads of Prince Edward Island in a summer twilight when the dew is falling and the old stars are peeping out and the sea keeps its mighty tryst with the little land it loves. — L.M. Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery, one of Canada’s most cherished and widely read authors, was born on Nov. 30, 1874, in Clifton (now called New London), Prince Edward Island, a place whose red roads, green gables, and restless sea would become the emotional centre of her creative life. When she was only 2 years old, her mother died of tuberculosis and her father soon abandoned her to seek work in Boston and then in the Northwest Territories. He ended up settling in Prince Albert, Sask., and left her in the care of her maternal grandparents. Biographers have described that home as emotionally austere, causing the girl to find refuge in her books, nature, and in her imagination….