The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career (Classic Reprint): The Story of My Career (Classic Reprint)

by L. M. Montgomery

Lucy Maud Montgomery, the creator of Anne of Green Gables and many other popular children's stories penned this memoir during World War I and it is often considered the best account of her childhood on Prince Edward Island and her first years as a writer.

The Alpine Path references her long and difficult journey to become a full-fledged writer and describes, in charming detail, her childhood in rural Prince Edward Island during the closing years of the 1800s. Maud writes movingly about her family, friends, and the island way of life and through this memoir we learn how these special people and places became the inspiration for many scenes and incidents in her later novels.

Despite the rejection of her Anne of Green Gables manuscript by many publishers, L. M. Montgomery refused to be discouraged from her goal of becoming an accomplished writer. Yet her remarkable success and fame from the instant popularity of Anne of Green Gables did not come without a price. Everyone who has enjoyed the Anne stories will be fascinated by this enchanting memoir first published in 1917.

• ISBN10: 0484794086
• ISBN13: 9780484794084
• Publish Date: 31 July 2018 (first published December 1990)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Forgotten Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 97
• Language: English

Reviews

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

The Alpine Path, though autobiographical, is just as charming a story as Montgomery’s novels. She writes in a confidential tone, sharing her secrets, struggles, and dreams with her readers as though they are her friends. Peeping through her words is a little of Anne Shirley, clear in the way Montgomery thinks and enjoys life. She admits that she loved to name places as much as her most-famous character, such as the “Lake of Shining Waters.”

Montgomery reveals that many of events in her books were inspired by real events. A liniment-flavored cake was real, though she was not the one who baked it! She makes sure to specify whether the events made it into Anne, Emily, The Story Girl, or another one of her works, so readers can find them and laugh all over again if they would like. Her own life is just as interesting as her fiction and would have made its own delightful novel!

Also evident in her personality are sparks of Emily, in the determined way she approached and pursued her career as a writer. But she looks beyond her own success and offers encouraging words and advice for other potential writers in describing her failures, joys, and methods. Montgomery is clearly a writer who loved writing for the sake of art. She admits that at one point it had never occurred to her she would be paid for her work; she wanted only to see it in print and have others see it, as well. That spirit, even halfway through her career, seems not to have died, which is probably why all her books, including this one, are so charming and full of life.