It’s time for one last post about Anne of Green Gables, because why not.
The Anne books are set in the later nineteenth century (Anne of Green Gables is roughly the late 1870s to early 1880s), and although they have a somewhat timeless feel to them, there are the occasional things that I, at least, read and wasn’t too sure about. What, for instance, is this anodyne liniment that Anne accidentally puts in the cake? When we first meet Anne, what exactly is this hideous fabric her dress made out of? What do Anne and her friends read for fun? This list is just short, but it should hopefully be interesting nonetheless. I’ve just pulled out the things about which I was most curious.
Pansy Books
‘…and Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we’re all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook. And you know you are so fond of reading out loud, Anne.’ (Chapter XV)
What is a Pansy book?
They are a real book series, about young people living exemplary Christian lives.
At least 200 were published between 1865 and 1931, and of this, nearly thirty were around by the time Anne would have come to Green Gables. The books were written by one Isabella MacDonald Alden, an American author who was also very interested in Sunday school teaching and church activities. ‘Pansy’ was a nickname that she later used as her nom de plume. These Pansy books were very popular and supposedly had a real ‘what-will-happen-next?’ kind of feel to them, good for reading ‘chapter about’. I read the first chapter of one, however, about a girl called Ester, and it was very sanitised and domestic and not terribly interesting, and Ester being sure that she has ‘a place waiting for her [in heaven] and all they [the other characters] had not’ was not the most gripping start to a story, but that’s just me.
The Peep of the Day
‘I’ll send her to the manse tomorrow and borrow the Peep of the Day series, that’s what I’ll do.’ (Chapter VII)
Considering that Anne had no religious education at all when she came to Green Gables, Marilla might be justified in wanting to borrow the Peep of the Day series, although it was really meant for much younger children, ages 4 through 6 or so, in order to prepare them to read and understand the Bible (maybe that was the point, though, as she thinks Anne needs the most basic of instruction…) The idea with these books was to teach children young, rather than put off their religious instruction until after they had learned to read. Its subtitle is ‘a series of the earliest religious instruction the infant mind is capable of receiving’, and it does indeed walk the reader through, in very simple, almost dialogue-style, format, most of the main events in the Bible, like God creating the world and the story of Adam and Eve, and then moving straight to on discuss Jesus. They were written by one Favell Lee Mortimer (1802-1878), a British Evangelical author, and were apparently criticised for being oversimplified.
Don’t forget, though it is subtle, that Avonlea is meant to be a Presbyterian community – they frequently mention the manse, which is the minster’s house in the Presbyterian context, there is reference to Anne being part of the Presbyterian church in later books as well, and L. M. Montgomery herself also came from this background.
Wincey
‘…an ordinary observer would have seen this: A child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowish-grey wincey.’ (Chapter II)
If you’ve heard the term linsey-woolsey, you’ve heard of wincey – they are the same thing, i.e. linen and wool woven together; the linen might sometimes be cotton. Wincey is the Scottish term for linsey-woolsey (and therefore the term with which LMM might have been more familiar, given her family’s background). Wincey was known for being serviceable and cheap, and is warm and similar to flannel. I never imagined Anne’s dress being flannel-like, although I’m not sure what I thought wincey was…
Anodyne Liniment
‘Mercy on us, Anne, you’ve flavoured that cake with Anodyne Liniment.’ (Chapter XXI)
Anne makes a cake, with a cold, so she doesn’t realise that the liquid in the vanilla bottle smells a little…off. Marilla had broken the anodyne liniment bottle and poured the remaining liniment into a vanilla bottle. The resulting cake was no longer fit for human consumption and had to be given to the pigs. But what was this stuff that Anne accidentally put into the cake? Something that tastes strange, but probably isn’t poisonous, one gathers from reading this chapter.
Anodyne liniment was medicinal, used to treat all manner of ailments, from colds to injuries, and was not always meant to be ingested, but rather rubbed onto the skin. I can’t seem to pin down exactly what was in it, as this seems to have varied depending on who made it, but ingredients might include alcohol, olive oil, soap, ether, or, more worryingly, things like opium or ammonia, or even things like aconite, which is poisonous, or even lead. A newspaper advertisement from 1872 describes a particular brand of anodyne liniment, Johnson’s, as being useful, ‘used internally or externally’, for rheumatism, which it can cure immediately, but also cramps, consumption, bronchitis, asthma, sore throat, mosquito bites, burns…no wonder it was ‘decidedly the best general remedy that can be introduced into the family or the workshop’. They don’t say what’s in it, but I think it’s clear enough that it does not belong in a cake!
A bonus one: when Anne has to save Diana’s little sister from the croup, while everyone else is off at a political meeting in Charlottetown, the ‘premier’ that everyone has gone to hear speak may well have been Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister. He was PM twice, and his second time in office coincides with when Anne of Green Gables is set, in the late 1870s. We know that it was a Conservative PM whom everyone went to see, and unless LMM has got this wrong, the Conservative Prime Minister at the time the story takes place was Sir John A. When Anne asks her what it was like to hear him speak, Marilla says ‘he never got to be Premier on account of his looks’, but he was a good speaker. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it is interesting to see a figure in Canadian history just sort of ‘there’ in the background of the story, never mentioned by name.
P.S. On a somewhat unrelated note, Anne is mentioned as having a weakness for russet apples. Russets are my favourite apples, too – I recommend them highly if you have never had one.
Further Reading
If you’re curious about why Pansy books were such fun to read, check one out: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/13234/pg13234.html
For those curious about nineteenth-century children’s religious instruction: https://archive.org/details/peepofdayorserie00mort
To see the whole newspaper advertisement for anodyne liniment, testimonials from patients and all: https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=67&dat=18721231&id=gIFSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TiYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2424,2541407&hl=en
How It Was Because 