As I talked about last week, I have been greatly enriched in my learning by podcasts, lectures, and entire courses. I keep playing with these media myself, but it was listening to Kate Scarth’s “The Life and Works of L.M. Montgomery” that made me decide to launch The Super Great Courses Series so I could share some of my discoveries with others.

First, a caveat.

As is the case with much of the content in this series, I am a friend and colleague of the author. We are the founding producers of the MaudCast, and we work together at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI). In academic circles, such a lack of objectivity can feel sketchy—though in those circles, we wouldn’t call it “sketchy,” but a faux pas, an indiscretion, an impropriety; it is louche, verboten, an outré approach to scholarship, a solecism on the grammar of academic diction.

While I think blind peer review has its place, if I were to describe this “objective” approach to reviewing materials, I would use a less-than-academic synonym of balderdash. Besides the value of sympathetic reading and listening, why would I spend the time writing up a review on Prof. Daüghnée VonMacSploitergroitson’s mediocre and nonconsequential course on “Wild Water Buffalo Husbandry on the Post-Soviet Steppes”?

When I have such limited audio bandwidth in the space between my ears, why would I even finish listening to such a thing if it wasn’t awesome?

Thus, I will only invest my time listening to and writing about moving and brilliant lectureships and courses. This is why I call the series “The Super Great Courses” and not “Milquetoast Musings on the Mediocre” or “Pensées on Pusillanimous Pedagogical Projects.”

And the truth is this: Kate Scarth is world-class. Besides being on the MaudCast masthead, Kate is the Chair of L.M. Montgomery Studies at UPEI, where she is also a prof in our Applied Communications, Leadership, and Culture program. She edits the Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, has a forthcoming monograph on Jane Austen, and … well, she does all the things.

The first lecture of this six-part series uses Montgomery’s legacy to draw us into the intrigue and depth of her life and works. I was part of a faculty team getting a 20-minute preview of this lecture in a campus classroom on a relaxed Friday afternoon. And I saw the 2-minute version of this lecture as part of a panel of dignitaries on an incredibly windy day in front of the Anne of Green Gables Heritage House, where Kate enthralled a crowd in suits and summer dresses, sipping raspberry cordial after being prepared for greatness by Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister.

I also read these lectures in draft form, but already Kate had shaped them so well that I had little I could add. I will come to the content in a moment, but I want you to hear Kate’s voice to capture the essence of what is happening here. I cannot seem to share an Audible preview, but here I am chatting with Kate in an early lockdown interview on the MaudCast:

And here is a little on-campus minidoc, where Kate introduces us to Montgomery’s Charlottetown:

What we get with Kate’s class on “Maud” is the best of literary biography delivered with intimacy and, indeed, humour. Kate is one of those speakers who, once you realize they are smiling as they speak, you can find the inside of everything they have to say. Read this description and you will see that Kate Scarth’s “The Life and Works of LMM” is a worthy addition to the Super Great Courses Series on A Pilgrim in Narnia (even if you don’t have a raspberry cordial right at hand).

Kate Scarth, “The Life and Works of L.M. Montgomery” (The Great Courses, 2025)

Canadian author L. M. Montgomery is best known for her best-selling and beloved novel Anne of Green Gables. But Montgomery was a prolific writer and artist whose output extends well beyond this long-lived masterpiece. Montgomery published 20 novels in her lifetime. She wrote hundreds of short stories and poems and 10 volumes of handwritten journals. Through her work, she has introduced readers around the world to the places she loved and to a host of unforgettable characters. Her books—especially the Emily of New Moon series, which focuses on a young writer—have inspired many other aspiring writers, including some of today’s most successful novelists. How did Montgomery make artistic magic through her writing, and how does she continue to touch so many readers across time, place, and culture?

In the six lectures of The Life and Works of L. M. Montgomery, you’ll join Kate Scarth to delve into five key topics that illuminate the life, work, and legacy of the author sometimes called “the Jane Austen of Canada”: family, place, friendship, creativity, and literature. Through these lectures, you’ll explore the impact of Montgomery’s personal experience on her art and get a clearer picture of how life both shapes and is shaped by literature. You’ll examine why Montgomery’s novels mattered in her own time and better understand the lasting and international influence of her life and her work across the generations. And you’ll discover why readers still can’t get enough of Anne, Emily, Valancy, and, of course, Lucy Maud Montgomery herself.

“The Life and Works of L.M. Montgomery” is part of the Great Courses series, available on Audible.

https://apilgriminnarnia.wordpress.com/2025/08/21/super-great-courses/