Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942), often published as L. M. Montgomery, was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist whose fiction made Prince Edward Island one of the most recognisable literary landscapes in children's literature. Born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, and raised largely in Cavendish, Montgomery drew on rural community life, school experience, family feeling, landscape, imagination, friendship, ambition, and the emotional life of girls and young women. Her 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables introduced Anne Shirley and became an immediate and lasting success, leading to a sequence of Anne books and a wider body of fiction set in richly observed Canadian communities.Montgomery's achievement extends beyond the popularity of Anne herself. Her novels and stories combine humour, sentiment, social observation, romance, moral development, and a vivid sense of place, making them valuable both as beloved children's classics and as important works in Canadian literary history. Anne of Avonlea shows Montgomery's ability to let a character grow without losing the qualities readers first loved: Anne becomes a teacher and a more responsible young woman, but remains imaginative, fallible, affectionate, and alive to beauty. For readers of classic children's fiction, Canadian literature, girls' stories, school stories, and family reading, Montgomery remains an essential and highly discoverable author.