Almost exactly 150 years after the birth of Prince Edward Island author Lucy Maud Montgomery, the manuscript for her most beloved novel has been added to a United Nations register that highlights Canadian heritage.
A Canada Memory of the World Register advisory committee agreed that Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables should be included in honour of the author’s 150th birthday on Nov. 30, 1874.
The register is administered by the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and contains 33 items including archives of correspondence, journals and diaries, historic maps, court records and administrative documents. Like the UN memory registers of other countries, it was launched to “safeguard and promote access to documentary heritage of universal value.”
The latest entry is 475 pages in Montgomery’s handwriting that made up the original version of Anne of Green Gables, plus 96 pages of her notes regarding additions to the text. The document is in the collection of the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown.
“Anne has proven herself relatable to young people across the world, and we are very fortunate that the original manuscript of this beloved classic is both preserved and accessible to readers and literary scholars,” Yves-Gérard Méhou-Loko, the secretary general of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, was quoted as saying in a news release about the inclusion.
“The Green Gables Heritage Place situated within the Prince Edward Island National Park now receives over 150,000 visitors per year, an example of the power of the arts to boost local economies through tourism,” that news release notes.
The Montgomery listing on the Canada Memory of the World Register site says the pages “provide unique insights into the reflections and creative process of this influential voice in Canadian literature.”
Montgomery, who preferred to be called by her middle name Maud, was born in what is now New London on P.E.I.’s North Shore. Many buildings and landscapes from her childhood and young adulthood were captured in the pages of Anne and about 20 other novels.
Anne of Green Gables, which recounts the adventures of an 11-year-old orphan with red hair and a huge imagination, was published in 1908 and has since been translated into dozens of languages.
It has also inspired many theatrical, film and TV adaptations and books, especially since its copyright ended and the work entered the public domain in 1992, 50 years after Montgomery died.
Back in 2021, the register’s administrators included court documents from the Nova Scotia trial of Viola Desmond, a businesswoman and civil rights advocate who was arrested in 1946 for sitting in a “whites only” section of a movie theatre. Her image now appears on Canada’s purple $10 bill.
Other topics in the Canadian memory registry include:
- Maps of Métis river lots in what is now Manitoba, which made up the original homelands of the Métis Nation.
- The Archival Records of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, chronicling the development and operation of the Indian Residential School System.
- The first handwritten draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as typed subsequent versions from the archives of John Peters Humphrey of New Brunswick, its principal architect.
- Archival materials related to the discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto.
