Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Which other authors do you enjoy? Discuss them here.
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Almas
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Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Almas »

Johanna Spyri and L.M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery are one of my favorite authors of all times. Their books have really inspired me extensively - and both of them have the ability to capture the reader's imagination.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri was the first non-Blyton book I had ever read. I considered it a bit boring and too long for a children's book at first, but when I saw a T.V. documentry on Spyri I immediately picked up the book from my school library and started reading.

Heidi is a most touching story anyone could have ever written.

An finally to the Anne books by L.M. Montgomery. I have collected all of them and ocassionaly read them twice every year. Even they are very touching stories.

Any fellow fans here? :D
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by RDMorrell »

I like both these authors. The Anne books are definitely my favourite girls' series! (Being a bloke, I'm not particularly into girls' series, but Nancy Drew and the Anne books are the two main exceptions in this respect). Anne is a girl with a lively imagination who loves making up stories (I think she may have been based on LM Montgomery herself), so I can relate to her. I also like the fact that she ages through the series. In fact, the last couple of books in the series are really about Anne's children! I have all the Anne books in Angus & Robertson paperback editions that came out in the late 1980s. I got into the Anne books after watching the Canadian TV series that starred Megan Follows as Anne. There was another TV series in the 1990s based on the Story Girl books, so I have both of those as well. However, I don't have the Emily books or any of the other ones Montgomery wrote - just the Anne and Story Girl series.

Heidi is another book that I was introduced to after watching a TV series. (It's remarkable just how many books or series I discovered through TV programmes!) I have two different editions of it (one hardback, the other paperback), and they are slightly different translations. I also have the two continuation novels written by another author - Heidi Grows Up and Heidi's Children. Haven't actually read those yet! But the original Heidi story is one of the all-time classics, for sure!
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Susie »

I love the Heidi books too! They make me long for a holiday in Switzerland. Can you believe she only wrote one book about Heidi, and it came so popular, it became a classic. The other two books by a different author I have never read, but will do some day.
Just like Enid's books it had a good moral, if you try to help people it makes you happy, and how good can come out of adversity.

I Watched every Anne video, and read some of her books. After I finished watching her I felt that everything had changed, even the tree outside was beautiful with colour and the way it waved it's long thin branches in the breeze. [Well you get the idea.] Her acting really rubbed off on me. Thank goodness it's worn off now it got a bit much after a time. She must of lived through world war one, I doubt anyone could write on the topic as well as her, had they not been through it.
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Kitty »

I was somewhat obsessed with Heidi when I was little - don't particularly like the book now, I must have overdosed on it or something. I'm not a terrific Anne fan either, though I do buy them, they get a bit tedious (sorry, Anne fans!). I prefer Emily as a character. Jane of Lantern Hill is another of which I am rather fond.
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by DarrellRivers »

I thought I would never like another children's book after being thoroughly spoiled by Enid Blyton, until I read "Anne of Green Gables". I loved the book and Anne's character. I also watched the movie (with Megan Follows as Anne) and thought they definitely did justice to the books. Prince Edward Island has got to be one of the most beautiful places in the world... However, I felt after the first 2 or 3 in the series, the rest went downhill.
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Susie »

Same the last video had me so confused I really had no clue what was going on, it seemed like it was very rushed.

At the beginning of the first video, Anne says (Megan follows) "Someone told me that I had a pretty nose and from then on I've been thinking about it."
I used to laugh at this, Until one of my cousins friends who I didn't know came up to me out of the blue, and said just that. :oops: :lol:
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Moose »

I like the Anne series but I think that it varies tremendously in quality. The only real classic in my mind is the first book, Anne of Green Gables. After that I feel that Montgomery was trying a little TOO hard to be all twee and quirky (both of which are probably the wrong words to describe what I mean but hey it's late and I can't be bothered to think of others :)).
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EF
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Daisy »

I heard or read somewhere that L.M. Montgomery said that the character of Emily had more of her in it than had Anne. I love both series but wish we saw more of Anne herself in the later books. The books are sometimes refered to as being set in Edwardian times -and the TV series seemed to show this - but Anne was born in 1865 so was very much of the Victorian era. I think Anne of Green Gables was written the 1920s, so guess the author did have first hand knowledge of how it was to live through the first world war.
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Moose »

I always had difficulty trying to work out the time scale. I had presumed it was set around the turn of the century but then references in the later books caused me to push that back a bit. But there are references to telephones when she is at college .. WERE there telephones in the 1880s? I had not thought so.
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Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
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EF
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Julian »

Susie wrote:They make me long for a holiday in Switzerland.
Same here! :lol:

The first time I read the book back three years ago, I just wanted to fly over to Switzerland. The discriptions of those mountains and Swiss life nearly took my mind away! :)

The Anne books are good too, but I'm afraid I haven't read all of them.
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Moose »

The drop off as the series goes, in my opinion :)
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.




EF
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Daisy »

The telephone was invented in the 1870s and in use thereafter. By the time Anne married in about 1890 (aged about 25?) quite a number of the more important members of the community would have one, including a doctor I imagine. Certainly the phone is mentioned by the time the Blythes move to Ingleside which would be about 1893 when little Jem was nearly a year old, but it is mentioned most in Rilla of Ingleside when war news was so sought after.
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Moose »

Thanks I didn't realise that :)
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.




EF
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

I first read Heidi when I was five and I longed to visit Switzerland after reading about the mountain peaks being "set on fire" by the sunset, and the valleys of wild flowers. I finally got to go there when I was nineteen, as part of an Inter-Railing trip, and it was just as beautiful as I'd always imagined.

Anne of Green Gables is a wonderful book but I find later titles in the series somewhat cloying and even dreary in places. Recently I re-read the first two titles and was amused by an episode in Anne of Avonlea in which Anne pays a call on an old lady with snow-white hair. A few chapters later, it's revealed that the lady in question is forty-five!

I only had six titles until last week, when I came across numbers 7 and 8 in a charity shop. Do the eight books constitute a complete set, or are there any more?

Anita
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Re: Johanna Spyri and L.M. Montgomery

Post by Daisy »

There are 8 books in the set Anita. You may also find a couple of short story compilations where Anne figures in one or two. I love the whole series and have read them countless times since my teens when I first came across them.
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