The Alpine Path

The Alpine Path: The Story of My Career (1917) by L. M. Montgomery.

“The Alpine Path” of the title refers to the long climb she had to achieve success as a writer. She began in childhood, and never wavered in her resolve. Her ambition was to become an accomplished professional writer—she never desired fame or greatness, and the remarkable success that came to her with the publication of Anne of Green Gables.

"When the Editor of Everywoman's World asked me to write "The Story of My Career," I smiled with a little touch of incredulous amusement. My career? Had I a career? Was not – should not – a "career" be something splendid, wonderful, spectacular at the very least, something varied and exciting? Could my long, uphill struggle, through many quiet, uneventful years, be termed a "career"?

It had never occurred to me to call it so; and, on first thought, it did not seem to me that there was much to be said about that same long, monotonous struggle. But it appeared to be a whim of the aforesaid editor that I should say what little there was to be said; and in those same long years I acquired the habit of accommodating myself to the whims of editors to such an inveterate degree that I have not yet been able to shake it off. So I shall cheerfully tell my tame story..."