Anne of Green Gables
First edition.
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| Author | Lucy Maud Montgomery |
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| Illustrator | M. A. and W. A. J. Claus |
| Country | Written and set in Canada, published in the United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Anne of Green Gables |
| Genre | Novel |
| Published | June 1908 (L.C. Page & Co.) |
| Followed by | Anne of Avonlea |
| Text | at |
Anne of Green Gables is a 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery (published as L. M. Montgomery). Written for all ages, it has been considered a children's novel since the mid-twentieth century. It recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan girl who is mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, a middle-aged brother and sister who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in Prince Edward Island. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town.
Since its publication, Anne of Green Gables has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into 20 languages. Montgomery wrote numerous sequels, and since her death, another sequel has been published, as well as an authorized prequel. The original book is taught to students around the world.
The book has been adapted as films, made-for-television movies, and animated and live-action television series. Musicals and plays have also been created, with productions annually in Canada since 1964 of the first musical production, which has toured in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Japan.
In writing the novel, Montgomery was inspired by notes she had made as a young girl about a couple who were mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of the boy they had requested yet decided to keep her. She drew upon her own childhood experiences in rural Prince Edward Island, Canada. Montgomery used a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit, which she had clipped from New York’s Metropolitan Magazine and put on the wall of her bedroom, as the model for the face of Anne Shirley and a reminder of her "youthful idealism and spirituality."
Montgomery was also inspired by the "formula Ann" orphan stories which were popular at the time and distinguished her character by spelling her name with an extra "e". She based other characters, such as Gilbert Blythe, in part on people she knew. She said she wrote the novel in the twilight of the day, while sitting at her window and overlooking the fields of Cavendish.
Anne Shirley, a young orphan from the fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia (based upon the real community of New London, Prince Edward Island), is sent to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, siblings in their fifties and sixties after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages. Marilla and Matthew had originally decided to adopt a boy from the orphanage to help Matthew run their farm at Green Gables, which is set in the fictional city of Avonlea. Through a misunderstanding, the orphanage sends Anne instead.
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