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Anne of Green Gables
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Anne of Green Gables Paperback - 2008

by L. M. Montgomery; Introduction by Jack Zipes

About this book

Anne of Green Gables is the first novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. The story tells of 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.

Like many of her contemporaries, Montgomery did not consider submitting her first novel to a Canadian publisher, convinced that a more lucrative deal could be made with an American firm. The novel was completed in 1905, but was rejected by four major American publishing houses, and it was not until 1907 that Montgomery found a publisher. L.C. Page & Co. finally published Anne of Green Gables in 1908.

Anne of Green Gables has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Following the success of her first novel, Montgomery went on to write seven more books about Anne, following the beloved protagonist through adulthood and motherhood. Several novels in the series have been adapted and made into a successful television miniseries. Montgomery museums, plays, and houses on Prince Edward Island draw international visitors.

Summary

An orphaned girl is sent to live with a family who is expecting a boy.

From the publisher

L. M. Montgomery was born in 1874 on Prince Edward Island in Canada, the setting of nineteen of her twenty novels. She died in Toronto in 1942.

First Edition Identification

Anne of Green Gables was first published by L.C. Page & Co. in Boston in 1908. Bound in green cloth, true first editions state “First Impression, April 1908” on the copyright page and contain 8 illustrations by M.A. and W.A.J. Claus. In 2009, a first edition of Anne of Green Gables sold for $37,500 at a New York auction.

Details

  • Title Anne of Green Gables
  • Author L. M. Montgomery; Introduction by Jack Zipes
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Pages 320
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Modern Library, New York
  • Date 2008-06-10
  • Features Bibliography, Price on Product - Canadian, Table of Contents
  • ISBN 9780812979039 / 0812979036
  • Weight 0.52 lbs (0.24 kg)
  • Dimensions 7.98 x 6.44 x 0.69 in (20.27 x 16.36 x 1.75 cm)
  • Ages 10 to 18 years
  • Grade levels 5 - 13
  • Reading level 990
  • Themes
    • Demographic Orientation: Rural
    • Religious Orientation: Christian
    • Topical: Coming of Age
    • Topical: Family
  • Library of Congress subjects Friendship, Orphans
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2008275299
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Excerpt

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies' eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde's Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde's door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

There are plenty of people, in Avonlea and out of it, who can attend closely to their neighbors business by dint of neglecting their own; but Mrs. Rachel Lynde was one of those capable creatures who can manage their own concerns and those of other folks into the bargain. She was a notable housewife; her work was always done and well done; she "ran" the Sewing Circle, helped run the Sunday-school, and was the strongest prop of the, Church Aid Society and Foreign Missions Auxiliary. Yet with all this Mrs. Rachel found abundant time to sit for hours at her kitchen window, knitting "cotton warp" quilts--she had, knitted sixteen of them, as Avonlea housekeepers were wont to tell in awed voices-and keeping a sharp eye on the main road that crossed the hollow and wound up the steep red hill beyond. Since Avonlea occupied a little triangular peninsula jutting out into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, with water on two sides of it, anybody who went out of it or into it had to pass over that hill road and so run the unseen gauntlet of Mrs. Rachel's all-seeing eye.

She was sitting there one afternoon in early June. The sun was coming in at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of pinky-white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees. Thomas Lynde-a meek little man whom Avonlea people called "Rachel Lynde's husband"-was sowing his late turnip seed on the hill field beyond the barn; and Matthew Cuthbert ought to have been sowing his on the big red brook field away over by Green Gables. Mrs. Rachel knew that he ought because she had heard him tell Peter Morrison the evening before in William J. Blaire's store over at Carmody that he meant to sow his turnip seed the next afternoon. Peter had asked him, of course, for Matthew Cuthbert had never been known to volunteer information about anything in his whole life.

And yet here was Matthew Cuthbert, at half-past three on the afternoon of a busy day, placidly driving over the hollow and up the hill; moreover, he wore a white collar and his best suit of clothes, which was plain proof that he was going out of Avonlea; and he had the buggy and the sorrel mare, which betokened that he was going a considerable distance. Now, where was Matthew Cuthbert going and why was he going there?

Had it been any other man in Avonlea Mrs. Rachel, deftly putting this and that together, might have given a pretty good guess as to both questions. But Matthew so rarely went from home that it must be something pressing and unusual which was taking him; he was the shyest man alive and hated to have to go among strangers or to any place where he might have to talk. Matthew, dressed up with a white collar and driving in a buggy, was something that didn't happen often. Mrs. Rachel, ponder as she might, could make nothing of it and her afternoo's enjoyment was spoiled.

"I'll just step over to Green Gables after tea and find out from Marilla where he's gone and why," the worthy woman finally concluded. "He doesn't generally go to town this time of year and he new visits; if he'd run out of turnip seed he wouldn't dress up and take the buggy to go for more; he wasn't driving fast enough to be going for the doctor. Yet something must have happened since List night to start him off. I'm clean puzzled, that's what, and I won't know a minute's peace of mind or conscience until I know what has taken Matthew Cuthbert out of Avonlea today-"

Accordingly after tea Mrs. Rachel set out; she had not far to go; the big, rambling orchard-embowered house where the Cuthberts lived was a scant quarter of a mile up the road from Lynde's Hollow. To be sure, the long lane made it a good deal further. Matthew Cuthberfs father, as shy and silent as his son after him, had got as far away as he possibly could from his fellow men without actually retreating into the woods when he founded his homestead. Green Gables was built at the furthest edge of his cleared land and there it was to this day, barely visible from the main road along which all the other Avonlea houses were so sociably situated. Mrs. Rachel Lynde did not call living in such a place living at all.

1. It's just staying, that's what," she said as she stepped along the deep-rutted, grassy lane bordered with wild rose bushes. "Ifs no wonder Matthew and Marilia are both a little odd, living away back here by themselves. Trees aren't much company, though dear knows if they were there'd be enough of them. I'd ruther look at people. To be sure, they seem contented enough; but then, I suppose, they're used to it. A body can get used to anything even to being hanged, as the Irishman said."


From the Paperback edition.

Media reviews

Citations

  • Newsweek, 07/28/2008, Page 49

About the author

L. M. Montgomery was born in 1874 on Prince Edward Island in Canada, the setting of nineteen of her twenty novels. She died in Toronto in 1942.

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