Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904

By Lucy Maud Montgomery

A Fortunate Mistake
An Unpremeditated Ceremony
At the Bay Shore Farm
Elizabeth's Child
Freda's Adopted Grave
How Don Was Saved
Miss Madeline's Proposal
Miss Sally's Company
Mrs. March's Revenge
Nan
Natty of Blue Point
Penelope's Party Waist
The Girl and the Wild Race
The Promise of Lucy Ellen
The Pursuit of the Ideal
The Softening of Miss Cynthia
Them Notorious Pigs
Why Not Ask Miss Price?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Classics
• Release date: Jun 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781633554078

Lucy Maud Montgomery

L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery (1874-1942) was a Canadian author who published 20 novels and hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays. She is best known for the Anne of Green Gables series. Montgomery was born in Clifton (now New London) on Prince Edward Island on November 30, 1874. Raised by her maternal grandparents, she grew up in relative isolation and loneliness, developing her creativity with imaginary friends and dreaming of becoming a published writer. Her first book, Anne of Green Gables, was published in 1908 and was an immediate success, establishing Montgomery's career as a writer, which she continued for the remainder of her life.

Reviews for Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904

[merechristian · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I stated in my review of L. M. Montgomery's short story collection published in the years 1902-1903, that the work suffered from two much commonality with all of her other stories. The stories came across as cliched, and boring. To some extent, this was unfair of me, as the various story ideas were used in these stories for the first time, so these are, in fact, the original stories, while the Anne stories and others are the later “copies” in terms of plot. That said, without the full development that the adventures of Anne Shirley give us, the stories really were not as much fun, due to their shortness. However, I can say that the stories in this collection really are better. Montgomery's considerable skill is obvious from any who have read her works. The only real difference between the stories she wrote in the year 1904, and those she wrote in the previous eight years, is in terms of originality of the tales. She actually introduced some new concepts, which was something she seemed unable to do beforehand. The stories were not almost carbon copies of each other, as many of the previous stories were. That said, there is still something to be criticized, and that is that some of her characters could be more than a tad shallow. The characters were mostly quite attractive among the younger ones, and those who were not attractive were not paired with the attractive ones. This reminded me of how eternally attractive Anne and Gilbert are in the Anne books, and how Anne and Gilbert made fun of an unkind woman behind her back, due to her weight. The worst part is that Montgomery was not portraying the characters here in this short story collection, or Anne and Gilbert in their stories, as wrong, but as correct in their behavior. With the exception of Anne's college chum, Phil, marrying a not-so-handsome minister, this is an unfortunate stream of shallowness running through her works. Even the character of Diana from Anne's girlhood, while portrayed nicely despite being overweight, is portrayed as infinitely out of Anne's league.Such issues are why I can not give unreserved approval to this short story collection, though I certainly do Highly Recommend it.