Becoming Green Gables Book Launch
Schedule
Tue Jun 18 2024 at 07:00 pm
Location
University of Prince Edward Island | Charlottetown, PE
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Bookmark is pleased to present the launch of Alan MacEachern’s new book Becoming Green Gables: The Diary of Myrtle Webb and Her Famous Farmhouse on Tuesday, June 18th at 7 pm in the Schurman Market Square in McDougall Hall at the University of Prince Edward Island. The event is sponsored by Bookmark and McGill-Queen’s University Press.Join us at the launch to find out more about the story of the family whose home inspired Anne of Green Gables and how that literary connection enriched - and upended - their lives.
In 1909 Myrtle and Ernest Webb took possession of an ordinary farm in Cavendish. Ordinary but for one thing: it was already becoming known as the inspiration for Anne of Green Gables, the novel written by Myrtle’s cousin Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Webbs welcomed visitors to “Green Gables”, making their home the heart of PEI’s tourist trade. In the 1930s the farm became the centrepiece of a new National Park, but the family continued to live there for another decade. Myrtle kept a diary from 1924, when she was a forty-year-old homemaker running a household of eight, until 1954, when she was no longer a resident in what was now the most famous house in Canada.
Becoming Green Gables tells the story of Myrtle Webb and her family, and the making of Green Gables. Alan reproduces a selection of the diary’s daily entries, using them as springboards to explore topics ranging from the adoption of modern conveniences to the home front hosting of soldiers in wartime and visits from “Aunt Maud” herself. While the foundation of Becoming Green Gables is the Webbs’ own story, it is also a history of their famous home, their community, the nation, and the world in which they lived.
Alan has put together a website that includes Myrtle Webb's complete diary, plus photos, postcards, and memorabilia, which you can find at www.GreenGablesDiary.ca
Praise for Becoming Green Gables
“Humorous in some places and a tearjerker in others, Becoming Green Gables captures an untold story about the famed Green Gables and home-grown tourism prior to the founding of the national park.” Catharine Anne Wilson, author of Being Neighbours: Cooperative Work and Rural Culture, 1830-1960
“Becoming Green Gables provides an appreciation of the complex grassroots history of one of Canada’s most beloved historical sites.” Melanie J. Fishbane, author of Maud: A Novel Inspired by the Life of L.M. Montgomery
ALAN MACEACHERN grew up on Prince Edward Island. He is a professor of history at Western University, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a past Visiting Scholar of the L.M Montgomery Institute at UPEI, and an author of many Canadian environmental history books. The Summer Trade: A History of Tourism on Prince Edward Island, which he co-wrote with Edward MacDonald, has been nominated for a 2024 PEI Book Award.
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Where is it happening?
University of Prince Edward Island, Bus Shelter, University Ave, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3, Canada,Charlottetown, Prince Edward IslandEvent Location & Nearby Stays: