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Some classics feel like homework. "Anne of Green Gables" feels like meeting a person. Within a few pages of her first appearance, Anne Shirley is talking, imagining, apologizing for talking, and then talking some more, and by the time she reaches the farmhouse that gives the book its title, most readers are already on her side. More than a century after it first appeared, it is still one of the best-selling novels in the world.
Who wrote it, and when
Lucy Maud Montgomery was born on 30 November 1874 in New London, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and died on 24 April 1942 in Toronto. She set her most famous novel on the island where she grew up, in the fictional farming community of Avonlea, in the late nineteenth century.
"Anne of Green Gables" was published in June 1908 by L. C. Page & Company of Boston. It was an immediate success: by November 1909 it had already gone through six printings. Montgomery went on to write several more books about Anne, although she admitted in a 1910 letter that she was reluctant to keep going. Today the novel is reported to have sold more than 50 million copies worldwide.
Where the story begins
The book opens not with Anne but with a neighbor. Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who watches everything that passes her window, is astonished to see shy Matthew Cuthbert driving off in his best clothes. His sister Marilla explains: the two of them, unmarried and getting older, have arranged to adopt a boy from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia. Matthew is sixty and could use help on the farm.
At the Bright River station, though, Matthew finds no boy. Sitting on a pile of shingles at the end of the platform is an eleven-year-old girl with a thin face and very thick, decidedly red hair. The stationmaster reports that she refused to wait indoors because there was "more scope for imagination" outside.
Matthew, who dreads all women except Marilla and Mrs. Rachel, and finds little girls even worse, cannot bring himself to leave her there. So he drives her home, and on the way she talks. And talks. Waiting for them at Green Gables is Marilla, who asked for a boy. What happens next is where I will stop.
What makes it worth reading
The heart of the book is Anne's voice. She renames the world around her: an ordinary avenue of apple trees becomes "the White Way of Delight," and a pond becomes "the Lake of Shining Waters." She would rather be called Cordelia, and if she must be Anne, she insists it be "Anne spelled with an E." On the drive from the station she says what might be the book's motto:
"Isn't it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about?"
It would be easy for a character like this to become tiring. Montgomery avoids that by surrounding Anne with people who do not share her enthusiasm. Marilla, with her rigid conscience and her hair twisted into a hard little knot, is Anne's natural opposite, and their conversations are some of the funniest in the book. Matthew, quiet and kind, discovers to his own surprise that he is enjoying himself. Mrs. Lynde, meanwhile, keeps her sharp eye on all of it.
That balance is what gives the novel its staying power. Children tend to read it as Anne's story. Adults who come back to it often find themselves reading it as Marilla's story too, noticing how much the grown-ups are changed by the child who was never supposed to arrive.
The book is also a love letter to a place. Montgomery's descriptions of Prince Edward Island, from the red roads to the blossoming apple trees, are part of the reason so many readers have wanted to visit it in person.
Who will enjoy it
"Anne of Green Gables" is a good fit for readers who like character-driven stories, warm humor, and a strong sense of place. If you know Anne only from a screen adaptation, the novel gives you her full, unfiltered voice. If you read it as a child, it is well worth rereading as an adult. And because it is in the public domain, you can start reading it free today through Project Gutenberg before deciding whether you want a printed edition.
Start with the first chapter, meet the girl on the station platform, and see how long you can hold out against her.
Sources
- Project Gutenberg, "Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery" (eBook #45, full text and opening chapters) https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45
- Wikipedia, "Lucy Maud Montgomery" (birth and death dates and places, six printings by November 1909, her 1910 letter reluctant to write more Anne books, later Anne books) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Maud_Montgomery
- Wikipedia, "Anne of Green Gables" (first publication date and publisher, setting, worldwide sales) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables