Anne of Green Gables' World Wide Appeal

"Despite its distinctly Canadian setting, Anne of Green Gables belongs to the world." (Canada Post)

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/157626055678408038/

Every Canadian knows about the flame-haired orphan who warmed her way into the hearts of Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert.  We know about Anne hitting Gilbert over the head with her slate when he teased her about her red hair.  We know about her kindred spirit, Diane, and about her tear felt goodbye to her beloved Matthew.  We remember her academic success and the trials of her first teaching assignment.

"[However] despite its distinctly Canadian setting, Anne of Green Gables belongs to the world."  (https://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/personal/collecting/stamps/2008/2008_june_aogg.jsf).  Who would have thought that a book with such a Canadian flavour would first be published by an American company?  Lucy Maud Montgomery had already been turned down by Canadian publishers and as a last ditch effort, in 1908, approached an American one, the Page Company of Boston  (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2014/07/anne-of-green-gables-could-have-sat-in.html).  

It should be no surprise, then, that one of Anne's earliest fans was the famous American author Mark Twain who wrote to Montgomery and praised her for creating "the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice [in Wonderland]" (http://www.enotes.com/topics/anne-green/critical-essays/anne-green-gables-l-m-montgomery).

It was only a year later that Anne was translated into Swedish, titled Anne pa gronkulla.  It was so well received that two further Swedish translations followed in 1941 and 1962.  

The Swedish edition was followed in 1911 by a Polish translation titled Ania Z Zielonego Wzgorza.  During the Second World War, members of the Polish Resistance were given black market copies of Anne of Green Gables to read at the Front, inspiring them to fight for their principles.  

In 1939, a Canadian missionary visited Japan and left her prized copy of Anne of Green Gables with a friend who secretly translated the text into Japanese, Akage No An (Red-Haired Anne).  After the war, when the Japanese school system was looking for good quality Western literature, Anne of Green Gables was selected for its curriculum.  Today, generations of Japanese celebrate Anne by visiting Green Gables on Prince Edward Island.  Many celebrate Anne-themed weddings at home.  Thousands of Japanese tourists flock to the Island each year, the women often dying their hair red and fashioning it in pigtails.  The Japanese cannot get enough of Anne.  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/new-stamps-released-tourism-spikes-as-p-e-i-celebrates-anne-1.697908

Mockingbird's Dill Harris Based on Truman Capote

"Mr. and Mrs. Lee, Harper Lee's mother and father, lived very near.  Harper Lee was my best friend...I'm a character in her book, which takes place in the same small town in Alabama where we lived.  Her father was a lawyer and she and I used to go to trials all the time.  We went to trials instead of going to the movies." (Truman Capote)

When I first read To Kill a Mockingbird to my Grade 10 class in Windsor, the image of Scout and Dill timidly approaching the recluse Bo Radley's house stuck in my head.  The image of Scout and Dill peeking their heads over the courthouse balcony as they watched Scout's dad defend a black man accused of rape lingered in my memory.  

In the 1920's and early 1930's, Harper Lee and Truman Capote were next door neighbours.  They developped a close relationship, spending long afternoons together.  Lee used to sneak into her lawyer father's study and sat at his typewriter as Capote dictated wildly imaginative stories.  Lee and Capote used to attend Mr. Lee's trials, the way other kids would go to the movies.   

Another pastime the friends shared was "the killing of mockingbirds", mentioned in a letter to a friend in 1955, seven years before the publication of the famous book.  The two were what Anne of Green Gables would call "kindred spirits".  Capote moved to New York; Lee later followed.  Both became writers.  Both became recluses later in life.  While Capote was a prolific writer, Lee only published one book in her lifetime (Go Set a Watchman came out posthumously).  Capote is immortalized in Lee's classic novel, a testament to a lasting friendship.

For more information, visit http://www.rjellory.com/an-interesting-slant-on-the-truman-capoteharper-lee-relationship-by-norman-mailer/.