"I Knew I Would 'Arrive' Some Day": L.M. Montgomery and the Strategies of Literary Celebrity

Abstract

The literary celebrity of L.M. Montgomery has been briefly summarized and memorialized, but it has not been closely analyzed as a phenomenon in its own right with connections to other systems of celebrity. Montgomery's celebrity disrupts the typical binary understanding of celebrity as either produced topdown by hegemonic powers or created by the urgent demands and desires of an audience. Not only did Montgomery intervene in her celebrity by agreeing to participate in the commercialization of her work, but she developed a strategic and remarkably intelligent negotiation with the celebrity processes that surrounded and in part tried to define her. Cet article propose une nouvelle analyse du rôle de L.M. Montgomery en tant que personnage littéraire célèbre. Contrairement aux autres modèles d'accession à la célébrité, imposée soit par l'institution littéraire ou la pression du public, l'examen des comportements et de l'attitude de la romancière met en relief un cas bien particulier. En effet, Montgomery a participé activement à la commercialisation de ses œuvres, mais tout en sachant élaborer sa propre stratégie afin d'influencer ce processus d'accession à la célébrité. Ainsi, loin de se laisser enfermer dans une image définie de l'extérieur, elle a su construire et faire triompher la sienne propre.