Lucy Maud Montgomery

Emily of New Moon Annotated Lucy Maud Montgomery

Emily of New Moon is the first in a series of novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery about an orphan girl growing up in Canada. It was first published in 1923. Emily Starr never knew what it was to be lonely--until her beloved father died. Now Emily's an orphan, and her mother's snobbish relatives are taking her to live with them at New Moon Farm. She's sure she won't be happy. Emily deals with stiff, stern Aunt Elizabeth and her malicious classmates by holding her head high and using her quick wit. Things begin to change when she makes friends, with Teddy, who does marvelous drawings; with Perry, who's sailed all over the world with his father yet has never been to school; and above all, with Ilse, a tomboy with a blazing temper. Amazingly, Emily finds New Moon beautiful and fascinating. With new friends and adventures, Emily might someday think of herself as Emily of New Moon. Even more so than L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, her Emily of New Moon trilogy novels (Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs and Emily's Quest) have always been absolutely and utterly personal favourites, and mostly so because while I have definitely and certainly enjoyed reading about Anne Shirley, her bubbly extrovertedness is not and can never be even remotely as close to me and to my own rather internal and quiet personality as equally imaginative and dreamy as Anne Shirley but also considerably more introverted Emily Byrd Starr. For indeed, Emily is absolutely and totally I, and a character, a persona to whom I can therefore relate much better and with considerably more ease than to either Anne Shirley and yes also to Emily's main sidekick and best friend Ilse Burnley who most certainly is an enjoyable and interestingly enough depicted character but who is also much too external and often considerably too all over the place, even bordering on the extreme for my personal reading tastes.