Have you ever wondered what inspired your favorite classic novelist to write their stories? What was happening in their lives to inspire their famous works? What was happening in the world at the time that they wrote those stories you love?
Join Host Bree Carlile while she helps to answer some of the questions you have always had about your favorite classic novelists.
For the next few weeks we will talk about the life of Lucy Maud Montgomery. What inspired her to write Anne of Green Gables? What else was happening in the world at the time?
Come with us as we release new episode to go along with each new author on the Bite at a Time Books podcast.
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Information for today's episode came from Wikipedia, don't judge us, we just want to give you a brief glimpse into the life. You can search the episode name in Wikipedia if you want to read for yourself. Thanks!
Transcripts
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Welcome to bite at a Time Books behind the story where we answer the questions you have about your favorite classic authors.
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What inspired your favorite author to write their novels.
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What was going on in the world at the time follow along with us as we tell you what was happening in the world while your favorite authors wrote your favorite classics.
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My name is bree Carlisle and I love to read and wanted to share my passion with listeners like you.
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If you enjoy our show, be sure to follow us so you get all the new episodes.
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If you want to see exclusive behind the scenes of our show, join our Patreon.
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We would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.
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You can catch us on all the social media's at Byte at a Time books.
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If you would also like to hear a story by the author, we are currently featuring check out the bite at a Time Books podcast wherever you listen to podcasts today.
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We'll be talking about World War One during the First World War Montgomery, horrified by reports of the rape of Belgium in 1914 was an intense supporter of the war effort.
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Seeing the war as a crusade to save civilization regularly writing articles urging men to volunteer for the Canadian expeditionary force and for people on the home front.
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Buy victory bonds, Montgomery wrote in her diary on September 12, 1914 about the reports of the rape of Belgium.
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But oh, there have been such hideous stories in the papers lately of their cutting off the hands of little Children in Belgium.
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Can they be true?
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They have committed terrible outrages and crimes.
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That is too surely true.
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But I hope desperately that these stories of the mutilation of Children are false.
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They harrow my soul.
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I walked the floor in my agony over them.
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I cry myself to sleep about them and wake again in the darkness to cringe with the horror of it.
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If it were Chester in leak stale like everywhere else in Canada recruiting meetings were held were ministers such as the reverend Macdonald will speak of Kaiser Wilhelm the second as the personification of evil, described the rape of Belgium and graphic detail and asked for young men to step up to volunteer to fight for Canada, the british empire and for justice in what was described at the time as a crusade against evil.
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In the 1915 essay, appealing for volunteers, Montgomery wrote, I am not one of those who believe that this war will put an end to war.
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War is horrible.
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But there are things that are more horrible still, just as there are fates worse than death.
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Montgomery argued prior to the war that Canada had been slipping into Atheism, materialism and moral decay and the war had brought about a welcome revival of Christianity patriotism and moral strength as the Canadian people faced the challenge of the greatest war yet fought in history.
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Montgomery ended her essay by stating that women on the home front were playing a crucial role in the war effort, which led her to ask for women's suffrage.
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On October 7, 1915 Montgomery gave birth to her third child and was thrown into depression when she discovered she could not produce breast milk to feed her son, who was given cow's milk instead, which was a health risk.
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In the days before pasteurization, Montgomery identified very strongly with the Allied cause, leading her on March 10th 1916, to write in her diary, all my misery seemed to center around Verdin where the snow was no longer white.
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I seemed in my own soul to embrace all the anguish and strain of France.
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In the same diary entry, Montgomery wrote of a strange experience.
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A great calm seemed to descend upon me and enveloped me.
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I was at peace.
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The conviction seized upon me that virgin was safe.
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That all Germans would not pass the grim barrier of desperate France.
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I was as a woman from whom some evil spirit had been driven, Or can it be as a priestess of old who out of depths of agony, when some strange foresight, out of the future, Montgomery celebrated every Allied victory at her house.
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For instance, running up the Russian flag, when she heard that the Russians had captured the supposedly impregnable Ottoman City fortress of Trabajan in april 1916, every allied defeat depressed her when she heard of the fall of cut Al Amara.
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She wrote in her diary on May 1st 1916.
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Al Amara has been compelled to surrender at last.
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We have expected it for some time, but that did not prevent us from feeling very blue over it all.
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It is an encouragement to the Germans and a blow to Britain's prestige.
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I feel too depressed tonight to do anything much to Montgomery's discussed, um refused to preach about the war as it went on, Maude wrote in her diary, it unsettles him and he cannot do his work properly.
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The reverend Macdonald had developed doubts about the justice of the wars that went along and had come to believe that by encouraging young men to enlist, he had sinned grievously Montgomery, a deeply religious woman, wrote in her diary, I believe in a God who is good but not omnipotent.
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I also believe in a principle of evil equal to God and power.
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Darkness to his light.
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I believe an infinite ceaseless struggle goes on between them.
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In a letter, Montgomery dismissed Kaiser Wilhelm the second's claimed that God was on the side of Germany stating that the power responsible for the death of little Hugh her stillborn son was the same power responsible for the rape of Belgium and for this reason, she believed the allies were destined to win the war.
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Montgomery had worked as a sunday school teacher at her husband's church and many of the men from Uxbridge County were killed or wounded in the war had once been her students, causing her much emotional distress.
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Uxbridge County lost 21 men in the Great War.
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From 1915 when Canadian troops first saw action at the second battle of operas until the war's end in 1918, Montgomery's biographer, mary Henley rubio, observed increasingly the war was all that she thought of and wanted to talk about her journal show.
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She was absolutely consumed by it, racked by it, tortured by it, obsessed by it, even addicted to it.
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Montgomery was sometimes annoyed if her husband did not buy a daily newspaper from the corner store because she always wanted to read the latest war news.
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Thank you for joining bite at a time Books behind the story.
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Today while we answered some of the questions you have about one of your favorite classic authors.
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If you enjoy our show, be sure to follow us.
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So you get all the new episodes.
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If you want to see exclusive behind the scenes of our show, join our Patreon.
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We would also love for you to drop us a rating on your favorite podcast platform and share our show with your friends.
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You can catch us on all the social media's at bite at a time books.
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If you would also like to hear a story by the author.
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We are currently featuring.
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Check out the bite at a time Books podcast wherever you listen to podcasts again.
