She wrote in her journal, “They took it and asked me to write a sequel to it. The book may or may not sell well. I wrote it for love, not money—but very often such books are the most successful—just as everything in life that is born of true love is better than something constructed for mercenary ends.”
Here are some more revealing excerpts from Maud’s diaries that show how the author viewed her second novel as she was writing it and after it was published.
Monday, Aug. 3, 1908
Cavendish, P.E.I.
To-day I finished my second book. I’ve been mulling over it so long that I’m not capable of judging it correctly but I know it is not nearly so good as Green Gables. I began to write it last October but was blocking it out and collecting and arranging materials for it all last summer. All this time I’ve been the prey of worry and nervous ills—not very favorable circumstances for the production of a good book. Anyhow, I am thankful it is done—though after all I enjoyed writing it. There still remains much of revision to do—and then the worst job of all, typewriting it. That is so tedious and slow.
Sept. 1, 1909
Cavendish, P.E.I.
My new book “Anne of Avonlea” came today. We very soon become used to things. When my first book came to me I was much excited and half intoxicated with joy. But the new book only interested me mildly. I liked its “get-up” and glanced over it with calm approval—and then went for a walk in the woods and thought no more about it.
I have dedicated it to my old teacher, Miss Gordon, in gratitude for her sympathy and encouragement in the old days. Whether she will ever see it or not I do not know for I have lost track of her. I have not heard from her for over three years and all my efforts to locate her present abode have been in vain.
It was Miss Gordon, in fact, who inspired the character of Miss Stacy. And though it is not clear how the two finally found each other again, Maud’s diaries reveal that she was corresponding with her favourite teacher in the year 1917, in the midst of World War One.
On Jan. 20, 1917, Maud wrote, “I had a letter from Hattie Smith [Miss Gordon] this week. Her youngest brother has been killed in France, and her son is in the U.S. army and has been on the Mexican border. Is there a heart in the world that does not ache today?...”
To read more about Maud's literary career and personal relationships, take a look at her journals, found here.
