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In this year of the Anne Centenary 'Before Green Gables' the prequel by Budge Wilson is set to be released by Amazon on 21 February.
From the PEI Guardian
Nova Scotia author Budge Wilson unveils prequel to Anne of Green Gables with approval of Montgomery family
BY MARIA KUBACKI
Canwest News Service
Anne Shirley may have been a homely, skinny baby, but she was walking when she was just eight months old. She had an odd-looking but quick-witted father and a poetry-loving mother with alabaster skin.
And even in the dark years after her parents died, she managed to find kindred spirits, including a bookish recluse known as the Egg Man.
If you don't remember all these details from Anne of Green Gables, that's because they're from a new prequel, Before Green Gables, published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the beloved children's classic by Lucy Maud Montgomery about a spirited red-haired orphan who finds her true home on Prince Edward Island.
No, it's not some recently discovered, long-lost Anne manuscript. It's a brand new novel written by children's author Budge Wilson, based in part on the snippets of information about Anne's early life in Nova Scotia in the original 1908 book by Montgomery.
Although many of the characters and most of the plot is taken straight from Anne of Green Gables and subsequent Anne books, much of the new novel is "created out of whole cloth," including the character of the Egg Man and details about Anne's parents, Wilson said in a phone interview from her home in Halifax.
The author of more than 30 books, including Friendships (a Governor General's Literary Award finalist), Wilson wrote a chapter a day and finished the prequel just in time for her 80th birthday last spring. She tried to capture the spirit of Anne but wrote in her own voice because she didn't want to try to imitate Montgomery. She still isn't sure what Montgomery would think of someone writing a new story about Anne.
"I wondered whether L.M. Montgomery would want me to do this or anybody to do this," she said.
She agonized for two months after she was approached by the publisher, Penguin, but finally decided to go ahead with the project.
"One of the things that drew me in was the puzzle of how Anne came to be." That curiosity about how Anne became Anne sustained Wilson through a rigourous process that included submitting a 38-page outline and sample chapter for approval by Montgomery's family.
Wilson says she was "blown away" by Anne of Green Gables upon rereading it as an adult.
It's the resilience of Montgomery's heroine that impressed her. From the time Anne's parents died when she was three months old until she came to Green Gables as an 11-year-old, she was neglected by the families who reluctantly took her in. She was forced to do housework and babysit from a young age. And her life in the orphanage was even worse.
Yet when Matthew Cuthbert picks her up from the train station to take her to her future home at the beginning of Anne of Green Gables, she's bubbling over with life, talking a mile a minute and thrilled at the prospect of living on Prince Edward Island. "How did she get off that train such a feisty, spirited, forward-looking person?" Wilson wondered.
Maybe it came down to good genes and the good fortune of meeting kindred spirits along the way, she decided. "If you have parents who are relatively mentally healthy and intelligent, you have a better chance of being mentally healthy and intelligent."
So she gave Anne intelligent parents, both teachers, who loved her and each other deeply.
She also invented some unlikely friends who nurtured Anne's spirit during her grim early years when she was exploited as free domestic labour - first by the Thomases and later by the Hammonds and their three sets of twins.
The Egg Man, a former teacher turned egg seller and hermit, introduces her to the joy of words.
Miss Haggerty, an old midwife who lives in the woods, teaches her that God works in mysterious ways.
Eliza, the Thomases' eldest daughter, loves her as though she were her own, giving her enough affection to sustain her when she was unwanted and unloved by anyone else.
Even Mr. Thomas, a drunk who beats his wife and terrorizes his children, takes a liking to Anne and shows her kindness.
Whether Montgomery would be pleased with the prequel or is spinning in her grave is anybody's guess. But there are her rabid fans to contend with - and some of them are bound to hate Wilson's book without even reading it.
"There'll be lots of fans who'll be furious that there is a prequel," said Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Epperly, the founder of the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince edward Island and the editor of Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery (also published by Penguin). Epperly has heard detractors say if Montgomery had wanted to write about Anne's life before Green Gables, she would have done it herself.
"There would be people for sure who would want to tear me to ribbons," said Wilson.
But an early review published in the Canadian book trade magazine Quill and Quire called Wilson's novel "an impressive addition to the Anne canon."
Montgomery's heirs have also given it a thumbs up - in fact, they authorized the prequel.
And Epperly, who was asked by the family to offer her expert opinion, has pronounced it a success.
"I love it," said Epperly of the book, adding that she hopes it will be a runaway bestseller. She especially liked the way Wilson's Anne - like Montgomery's - cherishes words and loves nature. "Budge has done a respectful job" without mimicking Montgomery's voice, she said. She also appreciated Wilson's eye for detail. "She's highly visual and so was Montgomery."
By the end of the novel, "I actually had tears in my eyes," she admitted.
Kate Macdonald Butler, one of Montgomery's grandchildren and the spokesperson for the heirs, was crying after reading the first few pages. "It was so beautiful how she wrote about Anne's parents," she said in an interview from Toronto. "I was looking for Kleenex on page 4."
Macdonald Butler never met her grandmother, but she feels sure that Montgomery (who died in 1942) would be pleased. "I don't think she's rolling in her grave."
She's well aware there will be criticism. "The purists don't want you to touch the story." But Wilson's book is "beautiful," as far as she's concerned. "She just really captured Anne's spirit. She got Anne - she nailed it."
Macdonald Butler, who is on the board of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority, says she's glad the family managed to publish a prequel before anybody else did.
"The best news is that we're out of the gate." The heirs had been approached about doing a prequel before, but had always said no. This time, they decided to go ahead, based on Penguin's assurance that the family would have "complete creative control."
The finished product which got the family's stamp of approval could make "a lot of money," said Macdonald Butler.
And the family is considering doing a movie based on Wilson's book, she said.
Sullivan Entertainment, the company behind the popular Anne of Green Gables film series starring Megan Follows, already has its own unauthorized prequel in the works starring Shirley MacLaine, Barbara Hershey and newcomer Hannah Endicott-Douglas as Anne.
Montgomery's heirs had no involvement in that project and plan to wait until the Sullivan prequel comes out before proceeding with their own movie, said Macdonald Butler.
Wilson, for her part, is relieved that the heirs like the book so much. "The family is pleased and that's important to me." And although she can't know how Montgomery herself would feel about the whole thing, she would like to think she would be happy. "I hope she wouldn't have minded," says Wilson.
I'm pretty sure though that in LMM canon we already knew that Anne's parents were both school teachers - at the Bolingbroke High School.
I would like to read this one. I've never read anything that Budge Wilson has written - will she capture Anne and will her descriptions capture the LMM flavour. Look forward to finding out.
From the PEI Guardian
Nova Scotia author Budge Wilson unveils prequel to Anne of Green Gables with approval of Montgomery family
BY MARIA KUBACKI
Canwest News Service
Anne Shirley may have been a homely, skinny baby, but she was walking when she was just eight months old. She had an odd-looking but quick-witted father and a poetry-loving mother with alabaster skin.
And even in the dark years after her parents died, she managed to find kindred spirits, including a bookish recluse known as the Egg Man.
If you don't remember all these details from Anne of Green Gables, that's because they're from a new prequel, Before Green Gables, published to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the beloved children's classic by Lucy Maud Montgomery about a spirited red-haired orphan who finds her true home on Prince Edward Island.
No, it's not some recently discovered, long-lost Anne manuscript. It's a brand new novel written by children's author Budge Wilson, based in part on the snippets of information about Anne's early life in Nova Scotia in the original 1908 book by Montgomery.
Although many of the characters and most of the plot is taken straight from Anne of Green Gables and subsequent Anne books, much of the new novel is "created out of whole cloth," including the character of the Egg Man and details about Anne's parents, Wilson said in a phone interview from her home in Halifax.
The author of more than 30 books, including Friendships (a Governor General's Literary Award finalist), Wilson wrote a chapter a day and finished the prequel just in time for her 80th birthday last spring. She tried to capture the spirit of Anne but wrote in her own voice because she didn't want to try to imitate Montgomery. She still isn't sure what Montgomery would think of someone writing a new story about Anne.
"I wondered whether L.M. Montgomery would want me to do this or anybody to do this," she said.
She agonized for two months after she was approached by the publisher, Penguin, but finally decided to go ahead with the project.
"One of the things that drew me in was the puzzle of how Anne came to be." That curiosity about how Anne became Anne sustained Wilson through a rigourous process that included submitting a 38-page outline and sample chapter for approval by Montgomery's family.
Wilson says she was "blown away" by Anne of Green Gables upon rereading it as an adult.
It's the resilience of Montgomery's heroine that impressed her. From the time Anne's parents died when she was three months old until she came to Green Gables as an 11-year-old, she was neglected by the families who reluctantly took her in. She was forced to do housework and babysit from a young age. And her life in the orphanage was even worse.
Yet when Matthew Cuthbert picks her up from the train station to take her to her future home at the beginning of Anne of Green Gables, she's bubbling over with life, talking a mile a minute and thrilled at the prospect of living on Prince Edward Island. "How did she get off that train such a feisty, spirited, forward-looking person?" Wilson wondered.
Maybe it came down to good genes and the good fortune of meeting kindred spirits along the way, she decided. "If you have parents who are relatively mentally healthy and intelligent, you have a better chance of being mentally healthy and intelligent."
So she gave Anne intelligent parents, both teachers, who loved her and each other deeply.
She also invented some unlikely friends who nurtured Anne's spirit during her grim early years when she was exploited as free domestic labour - first by the Thomases and later by the Hammonds and their three sets of twins.
The Egg Man, a former teacher turned egg seller and hermit, introduces her to the joy of words.
Miss Haggerty, an old midwife who lives in the woods, teaches her that God works in mysterious ways.
Eliza, the Thomases' eldest daughter, loves her as though she were her own, giving her enough affection to sustain her when she was unwanted and unloved by anyone else.
Even Mr. Thomas, a drunk who beats his wife and terrorizes his children, takes a liking to Anne and shows her kindness.
Whether Montgomery would be pleased with the prequel or is spinning in her grave is anybody's guess. But there are her rabid fans to contend with - and some of them are bound to hate Wilson's book without even reading it.
"There'll be lots of fans who'll be furious that there is a prequel," said Montgomery scholar Elizabeth Epperly, the founder of the L.M. Montgomery Institute at the University of Prince edward Island and the editor of Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery (also published by Penguin). Epperly has heard detractors say if Montgomery had wanted to write about Anne's life before Green Gables, she would have done it herself.
"There would be people for sure who would want to tear me to ribbons," said Wilson.
But an early review published in the Canadian book trade magazine Quill and Quire called Wilson's novel "an impressive addition to the Anne canon."
Montgomery's heirs have also given it a thumbs up - in fact, they authorized the prequel.
And Epperly, who was asked by the family to offer her expert opinion, has pronounced it a success.
"I love it," said Epperly of the book, adding that she hopes it will be a runaway bestseller. She especially liked the way Wilson's Anne - like Montgomery's - cherishes words and loves nature. "Budge has done a respectful job" without mimicking Montgomery's voice, she said. She also appreciated Wilson's eye for detail. "She's highly visual and so was Montgomery."
By the end of the novel, "I actually had tears in my eyes," she admitted.
Kate Macdonald Butler, one of Montgomery's grandchildren and the spokesperson for the heirs, was crying after reading the first few pages. "It was so beautiful how she wrote about Anne's parents," she said in an interview from Toronto. "I was looking for Kleenex on page 4."
Macdonald Butler never met her grandmother, but she feels sure that Montgomery (who died in 1942) would be pleased. "I don't think she's rolling in her grave."
She's well aware there will be criticism. "The purists don't want you to touch the story." But Wilson's book is "beautiful," as far as she's concerned. "She just really captured Anne's spirit. She got Anne - she nailed it."
Macdonald Butler, who is on the board of the Anne of Green Gables Licensing Authority, says she's glad the family managed to publish a prequel before anybody else did.
"The best news is that we're out of the gate." The heirs had been approached about doing a prequel before, but had always said no. This time, they decided to go ahead, based on Penguin's assurance that the family would have "complete creative control."
The finished product which got the family's stamp of approval could make "a lot of money," said Macdonald Butler.
And the family is considering doing a movie based on Wilson's book, she said.
Sullivan Entertainment, the company behind the popular Anne of Green Gables film series starring Megan Follows, already has its own unauthorized prequel in the works starring Shirley MacLaine, Barbara Hershey and newcomer Hannah Endicott-Douglas as Anne.
Montgomery's heirs had no involvement in that project and plan to wait until the Sullivan prequel comes out before proceeding with their own movie, said Macdonald Butler.
Wilson, for her part, is relieved that the heirs like the book so much. "The family is pleased and that's important to me." And although she can't know how Montgomery herself would feel about the whole thing, she would like to think she would be happy. "I hope she wouldn't have minded," says Wilson.
I'm pretty sure though that in LMM canon we already knew that Anne's parents were both school teachers - at the Bolingbroke High School.
I would like to read this one. I've never read anything that Budge Wilson has written - will she capture Anne and will her descriptions capture the LMM flavour. Look forward to finding out.