Welcome to The Green Gables Diary. For a half-century, Myrtle Webb lived in the Cavendish, Prince Edward Island farmhouse that became known as the inspiration for the novel Anne of Green Gables, written by her cousin LM Montgomery. It was a literary connection that enriched – and ultimately upended – her life.

Between 1924 and 1954, Myrtle kept a diary. It is a remarkable document, both a rich portrait of a rural way of life now gone and a historical record of a place in the process of becoming what it is today, the most famous house in Canada.

Thanks to the Webb family, the diary is available here for the first time. The Green Gables Diary contains digital scans and a transcription of the complete diary, plus family photos, memorabilia, and some introductory text to ground the reader.

My name is Alan MacEachern, and this exhibit is companion to my book Becoming Green Gables: The Diary of Myrtle Webb and Her Famous Farmhouse. (Here is the book's Prologue.) In the book, I reproduce a selection of the diary’s daily entries, as a springboard to telling the story of this real woman and real family whose lives became intertwined with a classic novel.