Warning: If you have a visual impairment, use the manuscript transcript version including the Lucy Maud Montgomery’s foot notes and contextual annotation references.

L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables Manuscript Scan

Chapter 8

117a

let any flies in—and bring me out the illustrated card that’s on the mantelpiece. The Lord’s Prayer is on it and you’ll devote your spare time this afternoon to learning it off by heart. There’s to be no more of such praying as I heard last night[.]”

“I suppose I was very awkward,” said Anne _^^{apologetically,} “but then you see I never had any practice. You couldn’t really expect a person to pray very well the first time she, tried, could you? I thought out a splendid prayer after I went to bed, just as I promised you I would. ~~But could~~ It was nearly as long as a minister’s and so poetical. But would you believe it? I couldn’t remember one word when I wo woke up this morning. And I’m afraid I’ll never

TEXT ANNOTATION

"The Lord's Prayer": In Christian tradition, the Lord’s Prayer was taught by Jesus to his disciples. Two slightly different versions appear in the Bible, Matthew 6:9–13 and Luke 11:2–4, and neither is exactly as it would have been said in the Presbyterian church in the late 19^th century.

TEXT ANNOTATION

"such praying as I heard last night": The discussion about to begin on the verso side of these pages is also a religious one. A very different kind of training is happening on those pages, though, without the humour of Anne's. In many of Montgomery's later manuscripts, the verso pages shed direct light on Montgomery's life experiences as she was composing.