Kate Scarth

There was a lot of anguish, especially as her life went on.

And so people were kind of shocked that the author of this sunny story could have had such darkness in her life.

I mean, I would say that, and, you know, scholars have talked about this, that one of Montgomery's strengths is that she balances the darkness and the light and the lightness works so well.

Like, you know, Anne...

transforms this community and Marilla and Matthew, but there's this darkness in her past and that darkness and light's more apparent in other books.

So people were kind of amazed at learning about this complex woman behind Anna Green Gables.

And then it also just allowed people to kind of see that complexity in the books as well.

And in her journals are in many ways,

creative works too.

Like she went back and copied them out and re-edited them so we can see them as kind of a great kind of literary output as well.

That's absolutely true, yeah.

Because she was a celebrity pretty much as soon as Anna Green Gables was published.

She did a lot of public speaking because of her books, got a lot of fan letters.

So she knew there would be interest in her journals.

So she went back and wrote them.

But, you know, sometimes she leaves things in, like nasty things she says about people.

And you think, oh, you know, why didn't she edit that out?

Laura Robinson, a Montgomery scholar, you know,

says, you know, we don't know for sure sometimes if a description, say, of a sunset appeared first in the novel or in the journal.

You'd assume it was in the journal and then she put it in the novel, but maybe she liked it so much in the novel that then it ended up in the journal.