Before Green Gables is a book on the early life of
Anne Shirley before her arrival at Green Gables and
was written by Budge Wilson. The book was published
in February 2008 to commemorate the centennial of L.M. Montgomery's Anne
of Green Gables.
Penguin publishing and some of Montgomery's descendants have designated the
book as an "official
prequel."
Cover Art:
The ancient, creepy Anne on the Canadian cover, the dull, unattractive
American edition, and the deceptively cute British cover art.
L.M. Montgomery described Anne's early years in a sad conversation between
Anne and Marilla following her arrival at Green Gables
in Chapter
V of Anne of Green Gables, "Anne's History." Anne's
parents, Walter and Bertha died of scarlet fever in Nova Scotia when
Anne was three months old. Mrs. Thomas and her drunken husband took Anne
in. She took
care
of the
four youngest children until Mr. Thomas's death, when Anne was eight. Then
she was taken in by the Hammond family to take care of their 8 children
(three
pairs
of
twins) where she spent over two years. When Mr. Hammond died, Anne
was sent to the Hopeton Asylum where she spent four months until she was sent
to the Cuthbert's. From these details, we know Anne's early life was harsh
and that she was exploited
as
a housekeeper and babysitter. Anne's imagination guarded her from the lack
of love
and care she received.
Halifax-native, Budge Wilson was asked to write the prequel by her Penguin
publisher, Helen Reeves. After two months of consideration, Wilson agreed
to write the book. Wilson is a prize-winning children's book
author, who has won seventeen
Canadian Children's Book Centre "Our Choice" awards and the Canadian
Library Association's Young Adult Canadian Book Award. Her book of short
stories, The Leaving, was named a Notable Book by the American Library
Association and was later included on the association's list of "The
75 Best Children's Books of the Last 25 Years." In 2004, she was made
a member of the Order of Canada.
Wilson explained that readers will get to know Anne's parents, Bertha and
Walter Shirley, and view their influences on Anne's personality in Before
Green Gables.
The prequel focuses on Anne's hard life before meeting Matthew and Marilla
Cuthbert at age
11 and arriving in Avonlea. While longing for affection
from her foster families, Anne survives by imagining
friends and noting the beauty of nature. She endures adult alcoholic
rages, domestic violence, poverty, and heavy labor. Anne finds rare enjoyment
in her few months of school where she learns to read and develops her love
of books.
Helen Reeves, the Penguin editor who conceived
the idea, said the project was made easier by the fact the Montgomery "gave
us something to build on" with "little snippets about Anne's
early life" in Nova Scotia, the loss of her parents to scarlet fever,
her travels between foster families, her time spent at the orphanage."
Reeves acknowledges that "there are going to be a lot of people who
think it should be left alone," and added that Penguin decided it
was critical to receive approval for the prequel from Montgomery's heirs "because
they are rightly protective of her legacy." In a statement announcing
the project, Montgomery's grandson David Macdonald said: "I think
my grandmother would have thought it appropriate for an author who grew
up in Nova Scotia to write about Anne's life before she came to Prince
Edward Island and Green Gables."
Quotes from Budge Wilson on Before Green Gables:
"I will, of course, try to be true to the astonishing character that
Lucy Maud Montgomery created," says Wilson. "For this, I am grateful
to her. But I would not -- in fact, could not -- presume to tell my part
of Anne's history in Montgomery's voice. I will do this in my own voice, hoping
that she would approve of the project if she were alive today."
"Anne
really is a marvelous, marvelous character. I'm just anxious to be true to
who she is."
"I was very concerned that L.M. Montgomery might not want this done." Though
the Montgomery family is pleased with her final product, Wilson admitted that
she would not
want someone "to do something like this" with
one of her own characters or books.
Nevertheless, "what drew me in was the puzzle
as to who she was in the early years and how she became who she is when
she met Matthew off that train."
"I
knew if I was going to do this
book, it was my job to fill in the gaps and explain how she could go through
all that and still emerge in P.E.I.
as a feisty and mentally healthy and articulate, forward-looking person."
"I wondered whether L.M. Montgomery would want me to do this, or anybody
to do this."
"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."
Personal Thoughts and Review:
Before Green Gables is a good short read, but is unnecessary;
I do not consider it part of L.M. Montgomery's Anne series.
Wilson's short and concise style
of writing
is
very different from L.M. Montgomery's. Before Green Gables is
entirely lacking in humor, which is my favorite thing about L.M. Montgomery's
stories.
In part, this may be because Anne's life before she reaches the Cuthberts
is bleak,
harsh and humorless.
The story starts with Bertha and Walter's life in their
little, yellow house. Though poor and solitary, Wilson shows that their home
is full of love, and
set apart from the lives of other young couples. Ironically, Walter is a
geometry teacher, and Bertha teaches English. While Anne takes after her
Mom in her scholarly endeavors, she despairs geometry, and she has her Dad's
red hair. The happiness in the little, yellow house is cut short when Bertha
and Walter die of scarlet fever. Anne is taken
in
by
Mr. and
Mrs. Thomas, who hope for the Shirley's nice furniture and Bertha's clothing
as part of the bargain.
Mrs. Thomas's life is in turmoil because of her husband's
alcoholism, and her one glimpse at a happy marriage is while she helps the
Shirleys during Bertha's pregnancy. Anne makes a lot of observations of Mr.
Thomas's double drunk/sober personality, and has brief glimpses of Mrs. Thomas's
kindness, but her life is more or less pathetic. Her happy moments are brief,
including her short months at school, visits with the Word Man (who teaches
her new words), daydreaming, and her reflection friend Katie in the glass
cabinet, which we learn came from the Shirley home. When Mr. Thomas dies,
Anne's life is much the same at the Hammonds. Though there is no anger, Anne
observes the family anxiety over too many children and not enough time or
money. Mrs. Hammond is always pregnant, and Anne's life is full with twins
and loads of diapers, cooking dinners and dishes. Her new friend is her echo
Violetta and she likes her teacher who shows her photos of P.E.I. After Mr.
Hammond has a heart attack and dies, Anne's stay at the orphanage is brief,
and though I thought it was better than her other homes, Anne didn't feel like
she fit
in
there
either, and she had no room to dream.
In reading through all the sadness, you feel really
glad Marilla and Matthew took Anne in. The story is an expanded version of
Chapter 5 of Anne of
Green Gables when Anne tells Marilla her history. In the end, I learned
more new things about the Thomas and Hammond families than I did about
Anne, and I have sympathy for all of them.
There are problems that detract from the book, which do not
historically fit into Anne's world or do not match Anne's later character from
Montgomery's works.
For example, Mr. McDougall shows Anne's class color photos of Prince Edward
Island, instilling in Anne a fondness for the colors of the Island. Color photography
was not commercially available in the 1870s. While color tinting could be used
for expensive portraits, it's doubtful a teacher
would
have the resources to tint his landscape photos. Also related to the photographs,
Wilson suggests that Anne had her strongest attachment in nature to the sea,
while Montgomery's Anne was strongly akin to forests, trees and plants.
Additionally, the discussion of pregnancy and the psychological analysis
Mr. Thomas are
very modern. Both draw the reader out of the Victorian timeframe.
I honestly didn't think the orphanage was as bad as the other homes in the
prequel, and it certainly was not worse than Anne's other two homes, which
contradicts what Anne tells Matthew in Anne of Green Gables "But
the asylum was the worst. I've only been in it four months, but that was
enough."
During Anne's time at the orphanage, there was also a distracting arithmetic
error when Anne envies Tessa. Tessa is 8 and Anne is nearly 11, and Tessa's
parents died 3 months ago. Wilson writes that this is about "seven years
and nine months longer than Anne had even one parent." Doing the math,
Anne hasn't had any parents for about 10 years and 9 months. Even without
the math error, the paragraph is a bit strange. I can't imagine a child thinking
in the manner it's written.
Anne often sounds like she is age eight to eleven when she's much younger,
which is somewhat unbelievable. While Anne is with the Thomas family for
eight years when she is only three months
to eight years old, and most of the book is focused on her observations of
this time in her life. Anne is older at the Hammonds and I expected her have
her more advanced ideas then in spite of living there for a short time.
The worst error in the prequel was the number
of compliments Anne received for her beautiful hair. Mrs. Archibald gave
Anne
hair ribbons
on two occasions
for her "beautiful hair" and this really doesn't establish Anne's
dismay at her hair color by the time she reaches Green Gables. You would
expect Anne would be fond of her red hair after reading Before Green
Gables, but we all know Anne hates her red hair.
All in all, Before Green Gables is an interesting take on Anne's
early life, but for me, it's not part of the Anne canon.
References for quotes:
Anne
of Green Gables gets a prequel: Nova Scotia children's author to create Canadian
literary heroine's early years by Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, October 28 2006
Now, we finally find out how Anne got to Green Gables
On
100th anniversary, a persuasive prequel by Elizabeth Ward, The Washington
Post, February 24, 2008
Wilson
tackles 'daunting' prequel to Anne of Green Gables, CBC News, February
11, 2008
How
Anne Became Anne: Prequel traces life before Green Gables by
Maria Kubacki, Canwest News Service, February 10, 2008
External Links:
100 Years of Anne at Penguin Books
Created 02.05.08, Last Updated 03.03.07
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