L.M. Montgomery and Anne of Green Gables

I think the environment that L.M. Montgomery grew up in - a very unloving, stern family isolated in a farming community - was very akin to Anne. She had a very difficult time relating to her father because he had moved west and she was left to be brought up by her grandparents. I think her conceit in order to survive, in order to maintain her high level of intelligence, was to kind of fictionalize the world around her. And in some ways she did that through writing, the prose she wrote, which was very surreal, very Anne of Green Gables-like. But she also did it in such a way that she created ideal relationships. She created the perfect parents out of Matthew and Marilla who, even though they were modeled on her grandparents who she was kind of estranged to, were perfect. She created the perfect boy next door that she could fall in love with. Her ability to spin this perfect world of relationships out of an almost fairytale, I think is another thing that makes Anne transcend time.