When conducting research on the writing process of Montgomery’s Anne novels, it came as a surprise that Anne of Windy Poplars, the fourth book in the series, was written nearly 20 years after Anne’s House of Dreams, the fifth book, which was published in 1917.  In fact, this was not the only Anne novel to be published out of sequence.  But here are the reasons why Windy Poplars, in particular, was written in this way.

In 1934, a motion picture was made of Anne of Green Gables.  Its success was met with additional joy from fans at the news that Montgomery was starting work on another Anne book.  According to Magic Island: The Fictions of L.M. Montgomery, the author was urged by publishers and this new found market to write another novel, but a greater push came from the fact that Montgomery was not collecting any royalties from the film.

So, she began work on Windy Poplars, which was then published in 1936.  She recorded in her journal in March, 1935:  “I mean to try to fill in the gap between Anne of the Island and Anne’s House of Dreams when she was teaching school in Summerside.  If it proves possible to ‘get back into the past’ far enough to do a good book it ought to do well commercially after the film.”

In order to gather material for this “in between” novel, Montgomery reread the earlier Anne books and went over her journals from her days as a young teacher.  This formed the inspiration for a book that would see Anne spend three years between her time in college and her marriage to Gilbert.

However, there were tricky aspects of writing the novel in this way that Montgomery had to remember.  She could not change the relationship that was established between Anne and Gilbert in Anne of the Island, nor could she change Marilla’s life or alter Anne’s writing career.

“Instead,” Elizabeth Waterston writes, “Montgomery does what is really her best trick.  She creates a series of chapters, each a story in itself, funny or sentimental or pathetic, all linked very loosely by the presence of warm-hearted Anne.”  In fact, this “Sketch-book” type of novel gave Montgomery greater license to introduce new characters, themes and subplots in a unique way.

Since the onslaught of the Depression, Montgomery had taken to submitting short stories to magazines in order to make some money.  Many of these stories, which were published by a farm paper in Montreal called Family Herald, were re-used by Montgomery in Windy Poplars.  However, these recycled stories were not introduced in the novel until the ninth chapter, which means that Montgomery had to spend a long time inventing the circumstances surrounding Anne’s new life as a teacher.

To read the novel for yourself, click here.  And stay tuned for upcoming posts about the writing process of the other Anne novels!

Source: Magic Island