Canadian author L. M. Montgomery is best known for her best-selling and beloved novel Anne of Green Gables. But Montgomery was a prolific writer and artist whose output extends well beyond this long-lived masterpiece. Montgomery published 20 novels in her lifetime. She wrote hundreds of short stories and poems and 10 volumes of handwritten journals. Through her work, she has introduced readers around the world to the places she loved and to a host of unforgettable characters. Her books—especially the Emily of New Moon series, which focuses on a young writer—have inspired many other aspiring writers, including some of today’s most successful novelists. How did Montgomery make artistic magic through her writing, and how does she continue to touch so many readers across time, place, and culture?

In the six lectures of The Life and Works of L. M. Montgomery, you’ll join Kate Scarth to delve into five key topics that illuminate the life, work, and legacy of the author sometimes called “the Jane Austen of Canada”: family, place, friendship, creativity, and literature. Through these lectures, you’ll explore the impact of Montgomery’s personal experience on her art and get a clearer picture of how life both shapes and is shaped by literature. You’ll examine why Montgomery’s novels mattered in her own time and better understand the lasting and international influence of her life and her work across the generations. And you’ll discover why readers still can’t get enough of Anne, Emily, Valancy, and, of course, Lucy Maud Montgomery herself.