Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery

Anne Shirley is, Mark Twain observed, "the dearest and most lovable child in fiction since the immortal Alice," and like the elderly Cuthberts who had hoped to adopt a boy instead of the spunky red-headed orphan, generations of readers have grown to love the impetuous Anne.

Canada's best known and most beloved novel is available in the definitive text of Montgomery's 1908 classic, an enchanting and timeless story of real lives and real loves.

Lucy Maud Montgomery was born in Clifton, Prince Edward Island, in 1874. Educated at Prince Edward College, Charlottetown, and Dalhousie University, she embarked on a career in teaching. From 1898 until 1911 she took care of her maternal grandmother in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, and during this time wrote many poems and stories for Canadian and American magazines.

Montgomery's first novel, Anne of Green Gables, met with immediate critical and popular acclaim, and its success, both national and international, led to seven sequels. More autobiographical than the books about Anne is the trilogy of novels about another Island orphan, Emily Starr.

In 1911 Montgomery married the Rev. Ewan Macdonald, a Presbyterian clergyman, and they lived in Ontario, where he was the pastor of parishes in Leaskdale and, later, in Norval. They retired to Toronto in 1936.

Lucy Maud Montgomery died in Toronto in 1942.

"Aficionados of the auburn-tressed waif will find Anne of Green Gables lavishly illustrated."
-Smithsonian Magazine