Anne of Green Gables manuscript added to national register

Actor Katie Kerr (Anne) runs through the opening scene of Anne of Green Gables The Musical at the Confederation Centre of the Arts in Charlottetown, P.E.I., Monday, June 30, 2014. (Source: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Rochford)

The original manuscript for the much-beloved “Anne of Green Gables” novel is being added to a national register this year, coinciding with the 150th birthday of its author, Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The Canadian Commission for UNESCO announced the 475-page handwritten manuscript will enter the Canada Memory of the World Register, which highlights and protects significant documents from across the country. The piece will also include 96 pages of Montgomery’s notes.

“We are very fortunate that the original manuscript of this beloved classic is both preserved and accessible to readers and literary scholars,” said Yves-Gerard Mehou-Loko, secretary general of the Canadian Commission, in a news release.

Montgomery, who was born on Prince Edward Island on Nov. 30, 1874, first published “Anne of Green Gables” in 1908. In the past century it has become a cultural touchstone and major tourist attraction for the province.

“Confederation Centre of the Arts purchased the original Anne of Green Gables manuscript in 1967 from the author’s son, Dr. Stuart MacDonald,” said Kevin Rice, director of the Confederation Centre of the Arts. “It resides in our archives, and only a lucky few have been able to see it or study it in person. The digitization of the manuscript has vastly increased access to it, allowing scholars and fans to discover Montgomery’s creativity in interactive ways not previously available.”

The manuscript is the first document from P.E.I. to enter the World Register. The only other Maritime item is Viola Desmond’s court records. Desmond, an African-Nova Scotian, refused to change seats in the “whites only” section of a New Glasgow theatre in 1946, and was jailed overnight.

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