The beloved Anne of Green Gables would have turned 150 last week.

… In a sense.

Nov. 30, 2024, marked the sesquicentennial of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s birth; she’s the prolific Canadian writer who gave us young Anne — and then followed her to adulthood in so many charming books.

But for all the joy her novels brought to millions of readers, life was not easy for the sensitive and hard-working author (or as I call her, “LMM”).

Born on Prince Edward Island in 1874, Montgomery got off to a grief-stricken start with her mother’s death from tuberculosis when she was only 21 months old. Her father eventually moved to Alberta, leaving young Lucy in the care of maternal grandparents.

While her life included work as a teacher, proofreader and Sunday school instructor, LMM’s passion was writing; she began selling short stories to magazines in 1897.

Indeed, the legions of “Anne” fans might not know that Montgomery penned 530 short stories, which are now available in various formats; a few years ago I cycled through dozens of these, constantly impressed by the depth, poignancy and sometimes-twisty endings in these tales.

Anne of Green Gables was not published till 1908, when LMM was over 30 years old. It was an immediate sensation, followed in ensuing decades by numerous short stories featuring Anne, along with eight book-sequels — the last not published in its entirety till 2009. I haven’t read them all, but at the moment my personal favorite is No. 5 — the enchanting Anne’s House of Dreams.

Montgomery penned a few other series: three books with “Emily of New Moon”; two adult-aimed novels featuring “Pat of Silver Bush”; and a pair with “The Story-Girl” — in the wonderful novel of that name and its sequel, The Golden Road.

There were also five stand-alones, of which 1926’s The Blue Castle really shines among LMM fans. (I use it in high school classes, where even boys name it their favorite from a year that also covers The Hobbit, C. S. Lewis, Louis Zamperini, Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird.)

Those stand-alone novels include what may be LMM’s crowning attempt to break away from the stereotype of “child writer”: the long and densely plotted A Tangled Web (1931).

I mention this as another of her many battles, whereby her very success (even the cynical Mark Twain was a fan) somehow mitigated against acceptance into the world of academic respectability. Indeed, as biographer Mary Henley Rubio points out, LMM was in a sort of catch-22: The public kept demanding just the sort of child-centered books (with happy endings, of course) that were not at all in fashion with the literati at the time; but her publishers really didn’t want anything else.

It’s worth noting that virtually all those “respectable” scholars and writers who slammed the door on LMM have since vanished in obscurity — whereas Montgomery remains such a global phenomenon that two of her residences (in Ontario and PEI) have been named National Historic Sites by the Canadian government.

Among her other struggles: a grueling 11-year battle over royalties with the shockingly unscrupulous American publisher L. C. Page — who, among other travesties, kept her to a mere 7 cents on the dollar; sold the rights to a book he did not own; and collected all the revenue on the first two film versions of Anne. (LMM eventually won this fight, but never recouped the actual monies she was due.)

Undoubtedly Montgomery’s toughest battle, however, involved her personal and family life. LMM’s husband, a Presbyterian pastor, struggled badly with depression, as did Lucy herself. Worse yet, according to Rubio, both were taking ill-prescribed medication that actually worsened what it was supposed to treat. LMM’s heart-breaking diary entries reveal the emotional depths to which she plunged — all of which was greatly exacerbated by the shipwrecked life of her troubled younger son.

I can’t detail all this here; but it’s in Rubio’s magisterial A Gift of Wings. That 2010 triumph is one of the finest biographies I’ve ever read, second only to Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens — which I don’t mind mentioning at this time of year.

And while we’re on Christmas: Several collections of LMM’s holiday-related stories are available; these editions vary in quality, as most of her work is now in the public domain and thus can be released without much vetting. The one called Christmas with Anne of Green Gables and Other Stories features a solid dozen tales, including the classic “Aunt Cyrilla’s Christmas Basket.”

It is excellent — with an E.