Emily of New Moon

An orphan sent to her mother's family at New Moon writes letters to her dead father, is forbidden to write anything else, and goes on writing. Montgomery said Emily was closer to herself than Anne ever was, and the household of aunts is drawn from her own. The book is about a vocation rather than a childhood, and it is the sharpest thing she wrote. Fifty-three plates by painters including John Atkinson Grimshaw and George Clausen show gardens, winter work and children indoors, matching the inward, letter-writing life Emily leads at New Moon.