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The Anne of Green Gables Collection
Don't Miss a Moment with Anne Shirley in this Anne of Green Gables Bundle
This bundle includes:
• Anne of Green Gables
• Anne of Avonlea
• Anne of the Island
• Anne's House of Dreams
• Rainbow Valley
• Rilla of Ingleside
• Chronicles of Avonlea
• Further Chronicles of Avonlea
This bundle includes:
• Anne of Green Gables
• Anne of Avonlea
• Anne of the Island
• Anne's House of Dreams
• Rainbow Valley
• Rilla of Ingleside
• Chronicles of Avonlea
• Further Chronicles of Avonlea
Audio CD
First published August 15, 2009
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2099 people want to read
About the author
L.M. Montgomery
1,863 books13.2k followersLucy Maud Montgomery was a Canadian author, best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
Montgomery was born at Clifton, Prince Edward Island, Nov. 30, 1874. She came to live at Leaskdale, north of Uxbridge Ontario, after her wedding with Rev. Ewen Macdonald on July 11, 1911. She had three children and wrote close to a dozen books while she was living in the Leaskdale Manse before the family moved to Norval, Ontario in 1926. She died in Toronto April 24, 1942 and was buried at Cavendish, Prince Edward Island.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
July 15, 2020
Check out my reviews for each individual book on their main pages.
June 29, 2017
One of my favorite book series of all time. Rilla of Ingelside is my all time favorite book.
July 28, 2023
The reason I did not like this Kindle collection of Anne stories has NOTHING to do with the stories!
It is solely because it is missing two of the stories in the series. Granted it does NOT claim to be a 'complete' collection so Buyer Beware*. However, to my way of thinking, "The Collection" implies that it is complete.
It lacks Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside. If you want a good kindle collection of Montgomery books, I recommend instead The Works of L.M. Montgomery, Delphi Classics, Kindle Edition. Not only does this edition have all the Anne books, but it also includes her two other series, The Complete Story Girl Series: The Story Girl + The Golden Road, Complete Emily Starr Trilogy: Emily of New Moon + Emily Climbs + Emily's Quest, plus her other novels, poetry, short stories, journals, etc.!
*Fortunately, it was only $.99 but still if I can save someone else from being snookered, so much the better.
It is solely because it is missing two of the stories in the series. Granted it does NOT claim to be a 'complete' collection so Buyer Beware*. However, to my way of thinking, "The Collection" implies that it is complete.
It lacks Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside. If you want a good kindle collection of Montgomery books, I recommend instead The Works of L.M. Montgomery, Delphi Classics, Kindle Edition. Not only does this edition have all the Anne books, but it also includes her two other series, The Complete Story Girl Series: The Story Girl + The Golden Road, Complete Emily Starr Trilogy: Emily of New Moon + Emily Climbs + Emily's Quest, plus her other novels, poetry, short stories, journals, etc.!
*Fortunately, it was only $.99 but still if I can save someone else from being snookered, so much the better.
bad-didn-t-finish-dislike
December 13, 2017Does not include Anne of Windy Poplars so did not read it.
February 6, 2019
Loved it. A great story of old fashioned values. And some of the drawbacks
Read
December 29, 2019Kindle volume is a collection of the "Anne" books. (downloaded it for 49 cents!) I reread Anne of Green Gables for book club. Eventually I will read the remaining Anne's I have not previously read.
September 19, 2024
Anne doesn’t even need my review.
March 10, 2018
A great classic series. I thoroughly enjoyed Anne of Green Gables and the subsequent books based around her personal journey. The books written about her children are fine reads, as well. I still need to read the final book in this particular collection, but must move on to other books for now.
March 20, 2024
These are abridged. Not only missing books 4 and 6 of the series, but the included books are abridged. If you are interested in every word and sentence of Anne of Green Gables (1), Anne of Avonlea (2), Anne of the Island (3), Anne’s House of Dreams (5), Rainbow Valley (7), Rilla of Ingleside (8) and two Chronicles books (short stories) written by Lucy M. Montgomery, this is NOT what you’ll get.
What makes a classic is that 100 years later the meaning and insight about humanity and the human heart holds true for the current reader as much as it enlightened all previous readers. Remember, as you can see from the description, and from the author herself, these books were intended to be enjoyed by adults, and not only children. There is much to entertain, but also much to learn about relationships and “growing up” at any stage of life. For example, Book #2 illustrates lessons in parenting and adopting. My dad loved Anne of Green Gables as much as I did!
Also, the narrator of #2 (Tara Ward) reads the voice of a full-grown Anne (“half past 16”) the way a silly child would if making fun of the dialogue. After this experience, I will hesitate before listening to Dreamscape audiobooks.
Anyway, I stopped at the start of the second book. I found an unabridged audio version from my local library app. I had to check the “children’s” department though! I may or may not return to the audio “Collection,” starting at the third book (since I purchased it for $7).
I originally read the first four books at age 11, thirty-plus years ago. A few years ago I listened to books #2 and 3, and I found the books valuable in a new way as an adult reader. This audio collection may be a good introduction for 21st century children, but please be sure to point out that There’s More!
What makes a classic is that 100 years later the meaning and insight about humanity and the human heart holds true for the current reader as much as it enlightened all previous readers. Remember, as you can see from the description, and from the author herself, these books were intended to be enjoyed by adults, and not only children. There is much to entertain, but also much to learn about relationships and “growing up” at any stage of life. For example, Book #2 illustrates lessons in parenting and adopting. My dad loved Anne of Green Gables as much as I did!
Also, the narrator of #2 (Tara Ward) reads the voice of a full-grown Anne (“half past 16”) the way a silly child would if making fun of the dialogue. After this experience, I will hesitate before listening to Dreamscape audiobooks.
Anyway, I stopped at the start of the second book. I found an unabridged audio version from my local library app. I had to check the “children’s” department though! I may or may not return to the audio “Collection,” starting at the third book (since I purchased it for $7).
I originally read the first four books at age 11, thirty-plus years ago. A few years ago I listened to books #2 and 3, and I found the books valuable in a new way as an adult reader. This audio collection may be a good introduction for 21st century children, but please be sure to point out that There’s More!
September 4, 2020
Anne Stories
Most classic literature by women authors is reflection of their collected wisdom through their lives, and the morality and ethics of the writing follows a lifeblood path as do the romances, rather than a study and a fancy clubbed together.
This set of tales was probably serialized originally, especially the second one on, from the tone of separate chapters - each a complete story, and yet they follow smoothly, flowing quite nicely one after another together.
The titles seem to indicate Anne's progress in life via the procession of widening circles they indicate - the house, the village, the island, and then they go specifying again, with house her home, and it's location.
One exasperation for a reader would be, when tempted by the beautiful descriptions of various places, one looks for just where it all is - and the place doesn't exist, or at least pieces don't match. Names are taken from wherever the author liked, and while descriptions might fit a place, it's hard to find just where any of them exists on maps.
............
............
Anne of Green Gables
The book begins with Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who is as much antithesis of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's German Garden as could be. That, one supposes after the protagonist appears, was a little bitter dose so the cherry cake Anne is that much more astounding, taking one by complete surprise.
It's a surprise that the protagonist is a little orphan girl arriving fresh at the home named Green Gables, rather than the woman of indeterminate age one sees on the cover, but that passes. Before long, before one knows, one is deep in comfort with Anne's world. The book is about halfway before one realises she's not going to be grown up in this volume, the author being in no hurry, and one is to enjoy the girlhood and the world thereof, with school and friends, teachers and walks in woods, and not talking to boys who are interested in one.
Nice to have descriptions of loveliness of nature and seasons strewn all over, but characterisation are good, and one expects Anne would grow out of hating Gilbert Blythe, which she is more than done already, long before they tie for top at entrance exam to Queen's.
And they are friends just as this ends, bringing satisfaction to reader despite the tragedy that smites in the silent Matthew departing and Marilla dealing with more.
June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.
............
Anne of Avonlea
Here we have Anne's career as a schoolteacher and beginning of society of her generation of Avonlea, with Gilbert Blythe now her close friend, apart from Diana (now courted by Fred Wright), and other schoolmates that had been at Queen's.
Her life now moreover is already centred on children, her pupils at school and twins at home who are Marilla's cousins.
Anne and her friends try to improve Avonlea by getting people to improve their properties and fronts, fences and sidewalks, but are confronted by unexpected problems, from mixups leading to a hall painted bright blue instead of green, to serious horrors looming in shape of people renting their fences for advertisements.
Anne lingers in girlhood, woods and flowers and children, with Gilbert still only a friend, although she's become aware he's growing out of boyhood. Her first acquaintance with the phenomenon of love is via a love story of two people of a prior generation, one a father of a favourite student and another she discovers living in a lovely house far out of the village, surrounded by a forest anne is enchanted with; the now middle aged woman finds a kindred spirit in the young boy so like his father, the love of her life.
And the romance does blossom, with Stephen Irving returning to marry Lavender Lewis finally, after Paul writes him about meeting her. But Marilla has the sensible comment:-
""I can't see that it's so terribly romantic at all," said Marilla rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing" to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. "In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy'll have him. Meanwhile, she's been living single, probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agree to be married after all. Now, where is the romance in all that?""
Exactly what those not fooled by the candy floss KJ copy, KKHH, thought. But meanwhile Anne is being sent off to college after all by Marilla, and that's the end of this part of the story and of her teaching Avonlea school for now, with a possible glimmer of romance with Gilbert Blythe on horizon.
July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.
............
Anne of the Island
One must give credit for continuity of the narrative that it picks up exactly where it left off, strengthening the guess that these were serialised writings published in periodicals before a suitable bunch was published as a book, rather than individual books published at intervals.
Changes are smooth - Diana Barry, engaged to Fred Wright back in Avonlea, has another path in life, and Priscilla Grant, familiar since Queen's, is now close friend and companion of Anne, who is at Redmond college at kingsport in Nova Scotia along with Gilbert Blythe and another Avonlea boy, Charlie Sloane. And now they meet Philippa Gordon from Bolingbroke, NS, where Anne originated.
Letters from Avonlea secured her life at college.
"Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor "supplies" they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.
""I don't believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays," she wrote bitterly. "Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it ain't true, and, what's worse, it ain't sound doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn't believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won't all the money we've been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that's what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he'd preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he'd better confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can't find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that's what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this respect. I'm told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday. I hope you'll never sink that low, Anne."
This book is about change experienced through college years, with summers spent at home in Avonlea even as home is coming to be in two places. And instead of it being limited to light frolic and serious study - which is there, of course, with a couple of exasperating and very unexpected proposals Anne has to turn down, and a attempt at story writing that ends in disappointment at rejection by publishers - there is serious life too, with death of a beautiful friend from school, experienced deeply by Anne. And the anticlimactic winning of story competition because Diana Barry sent the story in without telling Anne, modifying it to suit the advertising of a baking powder, and Anne consequently winning twenty five dollars, to her great mortification! Splendid!
It only gets better thereafter, with millionaire neighbour asking to buy Mrs Lynde's gift of tulip patchwork quilt from Anne, the cats, and Aunt Jamesina, at Patty's Place. There's the very rich, beautiful and brainy Phillipa Gordon sharing this new home and consequently learning frugal life, and saying shopping for groceries was more fun than parties with beaux fighting over her.
It ends well, with several satisfactory weddings, and finally uniting Gilbert Blythe with Anne, after she's had every chance at her romantic fancies - refusing him, meeting the dark handsome Roy Gardner who promptly falls in love and courts her and proposes after graduation, realising she didnt love him, and finally understanding that she could only love Gilbert - so it's quite satisfactory.
July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.
............
Anne's House of Dreams
Three years have passed between where the last volume ends and this begins, and Anne has taught school at Summerside while Gilbert Blythe finished his medical school. Their wedding is set and he's to join his great uncle's practice or rather take it over, at Four Winds Point, and he's found a dream house for them - hence the title. Diana Wright, who'd had her son Fred as the last volume ends, meanwhile has a two year old daughter called Small Anne Cordelia, mystifying Avonlea. There's a beautiful wedding in the orchard, with Allens presiding and Philippa Gordon's husband Jonas Blake leading a prayer, a bird singing through it all.
Marilla keeps in her grief at Anne no longer living at Green Gables, and expecting her to visit no longer through every vacation, after the fourteen years of lighting up Marilla's life with love. But Anne's friends - Diana with babies, Allans and Irvings - stay through the evening to supper, comforting them, and the twins are grown and taking over. Marilla might grieve Anne, but she won't be left lonely.
Anne's new home, unlike Green Gables, is close to harbour, and it's her first close acquaintance with the ocean with its might, beauty and more. The author compares the difference of woods verses ocean as human society versus mighty lonely soul, and one gets a feeling on the other hand that a veiled comparison here is that of childhood versus adult life - woods being comparatively safe, comfy, beautiful, while ocean has all the unpredictability and lurking dangers one might encounter in life as adults. A glimpse thereof is already in the previous volume, where Anne meets her perfect romantic fantasy in Roy on seaside walk in heavy storm, and is brought back to the same spot by him when he proposes. Gilbert, on the other hand, proposes both times in woods, in a park first and in an overgrown garden finally. She rejects Roy and the uncertainty, because she realises she doesn't love him; she realises she loves Gilbert Blythe before he proposes again, and faces life in a harbour in a home facing the ocean - in secure company of the love and security thereof that she found in woods.
In a way, this progression runs parallel to that of her life moving from village of Avonlea to the college life in town of Kingsport, and then to the harbour of Four Winds, signifying possibilities of global travel and adventures.
This volume is as much about the beauty of a harbour as it's about the stunningly beautiful neighbour of Anne and Gilbert Blythe, Leslie Moore, and her travails, the very lovable Captain Jim whose life's story is entrusted to Owen Ford the incredibly handsome author, and it's all woven together in reflections somehow of light and ocean, mist and shore, lighthouse and garden. The resolution of it all is unexpected too, and answers the question one wonders about, which is, why isn't there more about the twins and Marilla and so on.
It's because they are there, doing fine, but life moves on, and Anne's life is blossoming. She and Gilbert are to buy a larger house with property across the harbour so it's convenient, and Owen Ford is buying the little house of drems so he and his bride Leslie can have vacations there.
July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.
............
Rainbow Valley
By the time one begins this one, one is hooked. Then comes the surprise, of Rainbow Valley - the title corresponding more to the various chikdren portrayed than the valley unseen by the reader, hence quite misty.
Now thirteen years have lapsed, Anne is a mother of half a dozen, the eldest who looks like both parents born before the family shifted at the end of the last one; next son a dreamer like Anne, twin daughters Anne and Diana who look one each like one of the parents except its diana who takes her mother's colouring, the youngest a six year old daughter Rilla - short, presumably, for Marilla - in Anne's own image, and another son; and the household at Ingleside still retains Susan Baker for housekeeping and cooking, while Cornelia Bryant - who'd married Marshall Elliott after Liberals won and he got a haircut and a shave, after seventeen years - still visits regularly. And Mrs rachel lynde disapproves of Susan pampering the children. The Blythe couple has been to Europe for summer as this opens and left children in Avonlea except one whom Susan kept, since he's her pet. Their gossip session is how the author introduces next batch of characters and their histories, characters and more.
There is a new minister, and the four Meredith children make friends with the Blythe children while the latter picnic at Rainbow Valley, so named by them because they saw a rainbow stretch over it once. Here the author has a variation of the Avonlea woods for Anne's children.
And then the Meredith children find a starving orphan and adopt her for a while, with no adult any wiser, before Cornelia Bryant steps in to correct the situation - and is coaxed by Una Meredith into adopting her! So now we have a kaleidoscope of variations of the original Anne, none quite like her, and some even boys. The author is far more comfortable with children, unless it was readers who steered the author. Anne is now in background, with occasional comments from her, in conversations with Gilbert Blythe, Susan, Cornelia Bryant and others.
Cornelia Bryant continues to be the window for a reader not well versed in politics of churches, politics between communities of different churches, and what's considered propriety, which are all startling if one assumed any of it had anything to do with values such as truth, humanity, or kindness. Hence the Meredith children being always in soup despite their goodness.
Trust Anne to set the gossipers right, and point out that Meredith family is an extraordinary collection of people with rare virtues.
The author ends the book with a double wedding in immediate future, Anne's eldest Jem going off to Queen's soon, and gives a hint of the impending WWI that none of them have foreseen, except for Ellen West, sister of Rosemary, the soon to be new Mrs Meredith.
July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.
............
Rilla of Ingleside
............
Chronicles of Avonlea
............
Further Chronicles of Avonlea
............
The Story Girl
............
The Golden Road
............
Kilmeny of the Orchard
............
The Watchman and Other Poems
............
The Short Story Collection
.........
Most classic literature by women authors is reflection of their collected wisdom through their lives, and the morality and ethics of the writing follows a lifeblood path as do the romances, rather than a study and a fancy clubbed together.
This set of tales was probably serialized originally, especially the second one on, from the tone of separate chapters - each a complete story, and yet they follow smoothly, flowing quite nicely one after another together.
The titles seem to indicate Anne's progress in life via the procession of widening circles they indicate - the house, the village, the island, and then they go specifying again, with house her home, and it's location.
One exasperation for a reader would be, when tempted by the beautiful descriptions of various places, one looks for just where it all is - and the place doesn't exist, or at least pieces don't match. Names are taken from wherever the author liked, and while descriptions might fit a place, it's hard to find just where any of them exists on maps.
............
............
Anne of Green Gables
The book begins with Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who is as much antithesis of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's German Garden as could be. That, one supposes after the protagonist appears, was a little bitter dose so the cherry cake Anne is that much more astounding, taking one by complete surprise.
It's a surprise that the protagonist is a little orphan girl arriving fresh at the home named Green Gables, rather than the woman of indeterminate age one sees on the cover, but that passes. Before long, before one knows, one is deep in comfort with Anne's world. The book is about halfway before one realises she's not going to be grown up in this volume, the author being in no hurry, and one is to enjoy the girlhood and the world thereof, with school and friends, teachers and walks in woods, and not talking to boys who are interested in one.
Nice to have descriptions of loveliness of nature and seasons strewn all over, but characterisation are good, and one expects Anne would grow out of hating Gilbert Blythe, which she is more than done already, long before they tie for top at entrance exam to Queen's.
And they are friends just as this ends, bringing satisfaction to reader despite the tragedy that smites in the silent Matthew departing and Marilla dealing with more.
June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.
............
Anne of Avonlea
Here we have Anne's career as a schoolteacher and beginning of society of her generation of Avonlea, with Gilbert Blythe now her close friend, apart from Diana (now courted by Fred Wright), and other schoolmates that had been at Queen's.
Her life now moreover is already centred on children, her pupils at school and twins at home who are Marilla's cousins.
Anne and her friends try to improve Avonlea by getting people to improve their properties and fronts, fences and sidewalks, but are confronted by unexpected problems, from mixups leading to a hall painted bright blue instead of green, to serious horrors looming in shape of people renting their fences for advertisements.
Anne lingers in girlhood, woods and flowers and children, with Gilbert still only a friend, although she's become aware he's growing out of boyhood. Her first acquaintance with the phenomenon of love is via a love story of two people of a prior generation, one a father of a favourite student and another she discovers living in a lovely house far out of the village, surrounded by a forest anne is enchanted with; the now middle aged woman finds a kindred spirit in the young boy so like his father, the love of her life.
And the romance does blossom, with Stephen Irving returning to marry Lavender Lewis finally, after Paul writes him about meeting her. But Marilla has the sensible comment:-
""I can't see that it's so terribly romantic at all," said Marilla rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing" to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. "In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy'll have him. Meanwhile, she's been living single, probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agree to be married after all. Now, where is the romance in all that?""
Exactly what those not fooled by the candy floss KJ copy, KKHH, thought. But meanwhile Anne is being sent off to college after all by Marilla, and that's the end of this part of the story and of her teaching Avonlea school for now, with a possible glimmer of romance with Gilbert Blythe on horizon.
July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.
............
Anne of the Island
One must give credit for continuity of the narrative that it picks up exactly where it left off, strengthening the guess that these were serialised writings published in periodicals before a suitable bunch was published as a book, rather than individual books published at intervals.
Changes are smooth - Diana Barry, engaged to Fred Wright back in Avonlea, has another path in life, and Priscilla Grant, familiar since Queen's, is now close friend and companion of Anne, who is at Redmond college at kingsport in Nova Scotia along with Gilbert Blythe and another Avonlea boy, Charlie Sloane. And now they meet Philippa Gordon from Bolingbroke, NS, where Anne originated.
Letters from Avonlea secured her life at college.
"Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor "supplies" they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.
""I don't believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays," she wrote bitterly. "Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it ain't true, and, what's worse, it ain't sound doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn't believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won't all the money we've been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that's what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he'd preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he'd better confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can't find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that's what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this respect. I'm told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday. I hope you'll never sink that low, Anne."
This book is about change experienced through college years, with summers spent at home in Avonlea even as home is coming to be in two places. And instead of it being limited to light frolic and serious study - which is there, of course, with a couple of exasperating and very unexpected proposals Anne has to turn down, and a attempt at story writing that ends in disappointment at rejection by publishers - there is serious life too, with death of a beautiful friend from school, experienced deeply by Anne. And the anticlimactic winning of story competition because Diana Barry sent the story in without telling Anne, modifying it to suit the advertising of a baking powder, and Anne consequently winning twenty five dollars, to her great mortification! Splendid!
It only gets better thereafter, with millionaire neighbour asking to buy Mrs Lynde's gift of tulip patchwork quilt from Anne, the cats, and Aunt Jamesina, at Patty's Place. There's the very rich, beautiful and brainy Phillipa Gordon sharing this new home and consequently learning frugal life, and saying shopping for groceries was more fun than parties with beaux fighting over her.
It ends well, with several satisfactory weddings, and finally uniting Gilbert Blythe with Anne, after she's had every chance at her romantic fancies - refusing him, meeting the dark handsome Roy Gardner who promptly falls in love and courts her and proposes after graduation, realising she didnt love him, and finally understanding that she could only love Gilbert - so it's quite satisfactory.
July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.
............
Anne's House of Dreams
Three years have passed between where the last volume ends and this begins, and Anne has taught school at Summerside while Gilbert Blythe finished his medical school. Their wedding is set and he's to join his great uncle's practice or rather take it over, at Four Winds Point, and he's found a dream house for them - hence the title. Diana Wright, who'd had her son Fred as the last volume ends, meanwhile has a two year old daughter called Small Anne Cordelia, mystifying Avonlea. There's a beautiful wedding in the orchard, with Allens presiding and Philippa Gordon's husband Jonas Blake leading a prayer, a bird singing through it all.
Marilla keeps in her grief at Anne no longer living at Green Gables, and expecting her to visit no longer through every vacation, after the fourteen years of lighting up Marilla's life with love. But Anne's friends - Diana with babies, Allans and Irvings - stay through the evening to supper, comforting them, and the twins are grown and taking over. Marilla might grieve Anne, but she won't be left lonely.
Anne's new home, unlike Green Gables, is close to harbour, and it's her first close acquaintance with the ocean with its might, beauty and more. The author compares the difference of woods verses ocean as human society versus mighty lonely soul, and one gets a feeling on the other hand that a veiled comparison here is that of childhood versus adult life - woods being comparatively safe, comfy, beautiful, while ocean has all the unpredictability and lurking dangers one might encounter in life as adults. A glimpse thereof is already in the previous volume, where Anne meets her perfect romantic fantasy in Roy on seaside walk in heavy storm, and is brought back to the same spot by him when he proposes. Gilbert, on the other hand, proposes both times in woods, in a park first and in an overgrown garden finally. She rejects Roy and the uncertainty, because she realises she doesn't love him; she realises she loves Gilbert Blythe before he proposes again, and faces life in a harbour in a home facing the ocean - in secure company of the love and security thereof that she found in woods.
In a way, this progression runs parallel to that of her life moving from village of Avonlea to the college life in town of Kingsport, and then to the harbour of Four Winds, signifying possibilities of global travel and adventures.
This volume is as much about the beauty of a harbour as it's about the stunningly beautiful neighbour of Anne and Gilbert Blythe, Leslie Moore, and her travails, the very lovable Captain Jim whose life's story is entrusted to Owen Ford the incredibly handsome author, and it's all woven together in reflections somehow of light and ocean, mist and shore, lighthouse and garden. The resolution of it all is unexpected too, and answers the question one wonders about, which is, why isn't there more about the twins and Marilla and so on.
It's because they are there, doing fine, but life moves on, and Anne's life is blossoming. She and Gilbert are to buy a larger house with property across the harbour so it's convenient, and Owen Ford is buying the little house of drems so he and his bride Leslie can have vacations there.
July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.
............
Rainbow Valley
By the time one begins this one, one is hooked. Then comes the surprise, of Rainbow Valley - the title corresponding more to the various chikdren portrayed than the valley unseen by the reader, hence quite misty.
Now thirteen years have lapsed, Anne is a mother of half a dozen, the eldest who looks like both parents born before the family shifted at the end of the last one; next son a dreamer like Anne, twin daughters Anne and Diana who look one each like one of the parents except its diana who takes her mother's colouring, the youngest a six year old daughter Rilla - short, presumably, for Marilla - in Anne's own image, and another son; and the household at Ingleside still retains Susan Baker for housekeeping and cooking, while Cornelia Bryant - who'd married Marshall Elliott after Liberals won and he got a haircut and a shave, after seventeen years - still visits regularly. And Mrs rachel lynde disapproves of Susan pampering the children. The Blythe couple has been to Europe for summer as this opens and left children in Avonlea except one whom Susan kept, since he's her pet. Their gossip session is how the author introduces next batch of characters and their histories, characters and more.
There is a new minister, and the four Meredith children make friends with the Blythe children while the latter picnic at Rainbow Valley, so named by them because they saw a rainbow stretch over it once. Here the author has a variation of the Avonlea woods for Anne's children.
And then the Meredith children find a starving orphan and adopt her for a while, with no adult any wiser, before Cornelia Bryant steps in to correct the situation - and is coaxed by Una Meredith into adopting her! So now we have a kaleidoscope of variations of the original Anne, none quite like her, and some even boys. The author is far more comfortable with children, unless it was readers who steered the author. Anne is now in background, with occasional comments from her, in conversations with Gilbert Blythe, Susan, Cornelia Bryant and others.
Cornelia Bryant continues to be the window for a reader not well versed in politics of churches, politics between communities of different churches, and what's considered propriety, which are all startling if one assumed any of it had anything to do with values such as truth, humanity, or kindness. Hence the Meredith children being always in soup despite their goodness.
Trust Anne to set the gossipers right, and point out that Meredith family is an extraordinary collection of people with rare virtues.
The author ends the book with a double wedding in immediate future, Anne's eldest Jem going off to Queen's soon, and gives a hint of the impending WWI that none of them have foreseen, except for Ellen West, sister of Rosemary, the soon to be new Mrs Meredith.
July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.
............
Rilla of Ingleside
............
Chronicles of Avonlea
............
Further Chronicles of Avonlea
............
The Story Girl
............
The Golden Road
............
Kilmeny of the Orchard
............
The Watchman and Other Poems
............
The Short Story Collection
.........
September 25, 2020
Now, this was A LING read, but worth it. Lucy Maud Montgomery most famous for Anne of Green Gables, a truly phenomenal set of books following the life of Anne on Prince Edward Island through from childhood to adulthood. Within this set you have the rest of her works.
Storyteller and the adventures of Avonlea both set in two parts respectively. Storyteller another set of works with a young girl, Sara and her friends, similar in style to Anne, children having fun and trying to rationalise the world around them.
The Adventures and Further Adventures of Avonlea are a compilation of short stories. Unlike her other works they are stories surrounding adults/ adult centred. These were very novel and fun. However, her stories church based were lacking substance that you find in Caldwell and Steinbeck. We have characters overlapping in these stories and from Anne to Avonlea books, you not only fall in love with Avonlea but follow the story of Prince Edward Island rather than the characters themselves. After reading all these stories, you can just imagine all the orchards and apple trees themselves.
Finally the poems and poetry. For me, the weakest as it isn’t my favourite. HOWEVER, in this setting and context of reading the full works, they are quite a gem. Why? Because you really see the full versatility of Montgomery, alas, for nothing else, she will always be known for Anne of Green Gables.
Storyteller and the adventures of Avonlea both set in two parts respectively. Storyteller another set of works with a young girl, Sara and her friends, similar in style to Anne, children having fun and trying to rationalise the world around them.
The Adventures and Further Adventures of Avonlea are a compilation of short stories. Unlike her other works they are stories surrounding adults/ adult centred. These were very novel and fun. However, her stories church based were lacking substance that you find in Caldwell and Steinbeck. We have characters overlapping in these stories and from Anne to Avonlea books, you not only fall in love with Avonlea but follow the story of Prince Edward Island rather than the characters themselves. After reading all these stories, you can just imagine all the orchards and apple trees themselves.
Finally the poems and poetry. For me, the weakest as it isn’t my favourite. HOWEVER, in this setting and context of reading the full works, they are quite a gem. Why? Because you really see the full versatility of Montgomery, alas, for nothing else, she will always be known for Anne of Green Gables.
February 7, 2018
I enjoyed watching the Netflix TV series Anne With An E so much I just had to read the book on which it is based. I loved the way irrepressibly optimistic Anne, a bright 11-year-old orphan girl, used her wit and imagination to cope with the difficulties of her childhood. From the very beginning of this story, Anne captured my heart as she navigates her way through what promises to be a turnaround in her life.
Perhaps of interest to those who attended Pastor Jims evening series on forgiveness, the story also just happens to have to two wonderful examples that illustrate so well what makes a good apology (express regret, accept responsibility, make restitution, genuine repentance, request forgiveness). The first is when Anne has to ask a neighbor to forgive her for being rude. The second is when Marrila, the girl's ward, has to ask Anne for forgiveness.
A friend of mine says he read this book 41 times when he was growing up. The storyline, the writing and the character development make this a very worthwhile and enjoyable read even as an adult.
Perhaps of interest to those who attended Pastor Jims evening series on forgiveness, the story also just happens to have to two wonderful examples that illustrate so well what makes a good apology (express regret, accept responsibility, make restitution, genuine repentance, request forgiveness). The first is when Anne has to ask a neighbor to forgive her for being rude. The second is when Marrila, the girl's ward, has to ask Anne for forgiveness.
A friend of mine says he read this book 41 times when he was growing up. The storyline, the writing and the character development make this a very worthwhile and enjoyable read even as an adult.
August 11, 2011
I really enjoyed this series; all 8 books! The last book caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a historical fiction (which is my fav), but that is exactly what the last book is. I am sure that LMM didn't expect to write a historical fiction book, but when the Great War (WWI) broke out she didn't have much choice. I love the way the last book ended. It was so sweet it left me smiling for a while. Today I found myself wishing I had another Anne of Green Gables book to read. The only book I found difficult to get through was number 6. It focuses on Anne's kids a lot, in fact the last 3 books are about her kids. The 6th one was some what dull though. There was no real plot, just discriptions of them as they played. As a mother I love to watch my kids play, but as a reader I need more of a plot. Overall the series is a must read!
November 25, 2013
A series I read over and over again. Parts still make me weep no matter how often I pick these books up. Trips to PEI have me looking for Anne's favorite places and recalling passages of her vivid imagination. Love the entire series and watching her grow from a scared lonely child to a woman filled with love.
Read
March 20, 2016Just read Avonlea for now! Some sweet parts but like a child star today, some of Ann's magic does not translate as she becomes an adult. But I still enjoyed Avonlea, Green Gables, and the characters of Montgomery.
May 9, 2016
Most sticky sweet book I've ever read
Want to read
January 27, 2018💝 FREE on Amazon today (1/27/2018)! 💝
April 21, 2020
This was probably the third or fourth time I have read the series, but I enjoyed it just as much as always ! I recommend watching "Anne With An E" also if you can !
September 4, 2020
Anne Stories
Most classic literature by women authors is reflection of their collected wisdom through their lives, and the morality and ethics of the writing follows a lifeblood path as do the romances, rather than a study and a fancy clubbed together.
This set of tales was probably serialized originally, especially the second one on, from the tone of separate chapters - each a complete story, and yet they follow smoothly, flowing quite nicely one after another together.
The titles seem to indicate Anne's progress in life via the procession of widening circles they indicate - the house, the village, the island, and then they go specifying again, with house her home, and it's location.
One exasperation for a reader would be, when tempted by the beautiful descriptions of various places, one looks for just where it all is - and the place doesn't exist, or at least pieces don't match. Names are taken from wherever the author liked, and while descriptions might fit a place, it's hard to find just where any of them exists on maps.
............
............
Anne of Green Gables
The book begins with Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who is as much antithesis of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's German Garden as could be. That, one supposes after the protagonist appears, was a little bitter dose so the cherry cake Anne is that much more astounding, taking one by complete surprise.
It's a surprise that the protagonist is a little orphan girl arriving fresh at the home named Green Gables, rather than the woman of indeterminate age one sees on the cover, but that passes. Before long, before one knows, one is deep in comfort with Anne's world. The book is about halfway before one realises she's not going to be grown up in this volume, the author being in no hurry, and one is to enjoy the girlhood and the world thereof, with school and friends, teachers and walks in woods, and not talking to boys who are interested in one.
Nice to have descriptions of loveliness of nature and seasons strewn all over, but characterisation are good, and one expects Anne would grow out of hating Gilbert Blythe, which she is more than done already, long before they tie for top at entrance exam to Queen's.
And they are friends just as this ends, bringing satisfaction to reader despite the tragedy that smites in the silent Matthew departing and Marilla dealing with more.
June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.
............
Anne of Avonlea
Here we have Anne's career as a schoolteacher and beginning of society of her generation of Avonlea, with Gilbert Blythe now her close friend, apart from Diana (now courted by Fred Wright), and other schoolmates that had been at Queen's.
Her life now moreover is already centred on children, her pupils at school and twins at home who are Marilla's cousins.
Anne and her friends try to improve Avonlea by getting people to improve their properties and fronts, fences and sidewalks, but are confronted by unexpected problems, from mixups leading to a hall painted bright blue instead of green, to serious horrors looming in shape of people renting their fences for advertisements.
Anne lingers in girlhood, woods and flowers and children, with Gilbert still only a friend, although she's become aware he's growing out of boyhood. Her first acquaintance with the phenomenon of love is via a love story of two people of a prior generation, one a father of a favourite student and another she discovers living in a lovely house far out of the village, surrounded by a forest anne is enchanted with; the now middle aged woman finds a kindred spirit in the young boy so like his father, the love of her life.
And the romance does blossom, with Stephen Irving returning to marry Lavender Lewis finally, after Paul writes him about meeting her. But Marilla has the sensible comment:-
""I can't see that it's so terribly romantic at all," said Marilla rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing" to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. "In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy'll have him. Meanwhile, she's been living single, probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agree to be married after all. Now, where is the romance in all that?""
Exactly what those not fooled by the candy floss KJ copy, KKHH, thought. But meanwhile Anne is being sent off to college after all by Marilla, and that's the end of this part of the story and of her teaching Avonlea school for now, with a possible glimmer of romance with Gilbert Blythe on horizon.
July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.
............
Anne of the Island
One must give credit for continuity of the narrative that it picks up exactly where it left off, strengthening the guess that these were serialised writings published in periodicals before a suitable bunch was published as a book, rather than individual books published at intervals.
Changes are smooth - Diana Barry, engaged to Fred Wright back in Avonlea, has another path in life, and Priscilla Grant, familiar since Queen's, is now close friend and companion of Anne, who is at Redmond college at kingsport in Nova Scotia along with Gilbert Blythe and another Avonlea boy, Charlie Sloane. And now they meet Philippa Gordon from Bolingbroke, NS, where Anne originated.
Letters from Avonlea secured her life at college.
"Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor "supplies" they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.
""I don't believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays," she wrote bitterly. "Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it ain't true, and, what's worse, it ain't sound doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn't believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won't all the money we've been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that's what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he'd preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he'd better confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can't find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that's what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this respect. I'm told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday. I hope you'll never sink that low, Anne."
This book is about change experienced through college years, with summers spent at home in Avonlea even as home is coming to be in two places. And instead of it being limited to light frolic and serious study - which is there, of course, with a couple of exasperating and very unexpected proposals Anne has to turn down, and a attempt at story writing that ends in disappointment at rejection by publishers - there is serious life too, with death of a beautiful friend from school, experienced deeply by Anne. And the anticlimactic winning of story competition because Diana Barry sent the story in without telling Anne, modifying it to suit the advertising of a baking powder, and Anne consequently winning twenty five dollars, to her great mortification! Splendid!
It only gets better thereafter, with millionaire neighbour asking to buy Mrs Lynde's gift of tulip patchwork quilt from Anne, the cats, and Aunt Jamesina, at Patty's Place. There's the very rich, beautiful and brainy Phillipa Gordon sharing this new home and consequently learning frugal life, and saying shopping for groceries was more fun than parties with beaux fighting over her.
It ends well, with several satisfactory weddings, and finally uniting Gilbert Blythe with Anne, after she's had every chance at her romantic fancies - refusing him, meeting the dark handsome Roy Gardner who promptly falls in love and courts her and proposes after graduation, realising she didnt love him, and finally understanding that she could only love Gilbert - so it's quite satisfactory.
July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.
............
Anne's House of Dreams
Three years have passed between where the last volume ends and this begins, and Anne has taught school at Summerside while Gilbert Blythe finished his medical school. Their wedding is set and he's to join his great uncle's practice or rather take it over, at Four Winds Point, and he's found a dream house for them - hence the title. Diana Wright, who'd had her son Fred as the last volume ends, meanwhile has a two year old daughter called Small Anne Cordelia, mystifying Avonlea. There's a beautiful wedding in the orchard, with Allens presiding and Philippa Gordon's husband Jonas Blake leading a prayer, a bird singing through it all.
Marilla keeps in her grief at Anne no longer living at Green Gables, and expecting her to visit no longer through every vacation, after the fourteen years of lighting up Marilla's life with love. But Anne's friends - Diana with babies, Allans and Irvings - stay through the evening to supper, comforting them, and the twins are grown and taking over. Marilla might grieve Anne, but she won't be left lonely.
Anne's new home, unlike Green Gables, is close to harbour, and it's her first close acquaintance with the ocean with its might, beauty and more. The author compares the difference of woods verses ocean as human society versus mighty lonely soul, and one gets a feeling on the other hand that a veiled comparison here is that of childhood versus adult life - woods being comparatively safe, comfy, beautiful, while ocean has all the unpredictability and lurking dangers one might encounter in life as adults. A glimpse thereof is already in the previous volume, where Anne meets her perfect romantic fantasy in Roy on seaside walk in heavy storm, and is brought back to the same spot by him when he proposes. Gilbert, on the other hand, proposes both times in woods, in a park first and in an overgrown garden finally. She rejects Roy and the uncertainty, because she realises she doesn't love him; she realises she loves Gilbert Blythe before he proposes again, and faces life in a harbour in a home facing the ocean - in secure company of the love and security thereof that she found in woods.
In a way, this progression runs parallel to that of her life moving from village of Avonlea to the college life in town of Kingsport, and then to the harbour of Four Winds, signifying possibilities of global travel and adventures.
This volume is as much about the beauty of a harbour as it's about the stunningly beautiful neighbour of Anne and Gilbert Blythe, Leslie Moore, and her travails, the very lovable Captain Jim whose life's story is entrusted to Owen Ford the incredibly handsome author, and it's all woven together in reflections somehow of light and ocean, mist and shore, lighthouse and garden. The resolution of it all is unexpected too, and answers the question one wonders about, which is, why isn't there more about the twins and Marilla and so on.
It's because they are there, doing fine, but life moves on, and Anne's life is blossoming. She and Gilbert are to buy a larger house with property across the harbour so it's convenient, and Owen Ford is buying the little house of drems so he and his bride Leslie can have vacations there.
July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.
............
Rainbow Valley
By the time one begins this one, one is hooked. Then comes the surprise, of Rainbow Valley - the title corresponding more to the various chikdren portrayed than the valley unseen by the reader, hence quite misty.
Now thirteen years have lapsed, Anne is a mother of half a dozen, the eldest who looks like both parents born before the family shifted at the end of the last one; next son a dreamer like Anne, twin daughters Anne and Diana who look one each like one of the parents except its diana who takes her mother's colouring, the youngest a six year old daughter Rilla - short, presumably, for Marilla - in Anne's own image, and another son; and the household at Ingleside still retains Susan Baker for housekeeping and cooking, while Cornelia Bryant - who'd married Marshall Elliott after Liberals won and he got a haircut and a shave, after seventeen years - still visits regularly. And Mrs rachel lynde disapproves of Susan pampering the children. The Blythe couple has been to Europe for summer as this opens and left children in Avonlea except one whom Susan kept, since he's her pet. Their gossip session is how the author introduces next batch of characters and their histories, characters and more.
There is a new minister, and the four Meredith children make friends with the Blythe children while the latter picnic at Rainbow Valley, so named by them because they saw a rainbow stretch over it once. Here the author has a variation of the Avonlea woods for Anne's children.
And then the Meredith children find a starving orphan and adopt her for a while, with no adult any wiser, before Cornelia Bryant steps in to correct the situation - and is coaxed by Una Meredith into adopting her! So now we have a kaleidoscope of variations of the original Anne, none quite like her, and some even boys. The author is far more comfortable with children, unless it was readers who steered the author. Anne is now in background, with occasional comments from her, in conversations with Gilbert Blythe, Susan, Cornelia Bryant and others.
Cornelia Bryant continues to be the window for a reader not well versed in politics of churches, politics between communities of different churches, and what's considered propriety, which are all startling if one assumed any of it had anything to do with values such as truth, humanity, or kindness. Hence the Meredith children being always in soup despite their goodness.
Trust Anne to set the gossipers right, and point out that Meredith family is an extraordinary collection of people with rare virtues.
The author ends the book with a double wedding in immediate future, Anne's eldest Jem going off to Queen's soon, and gives a hint of the impending WWI that none of them have foreseen, except for Ellen West, sister of Rosemary, the soon to be new Mrs Meredith.
July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.
............
Rilla of Ingleside
............
Chronicles of Avonlea
............
Further Chronicles of Avonlea
............
The Story Girl
............
The Golden Road
............
Kilmeny of the Orchard
............
The Watchman and Other Poems
............
The Short Story Collection
.........
.........
Most classic literature by women authors is reflection of their collected wisdom through their lives, and the morality and ethics of the writing follows a lifeblood path as do the romances, rather than a study and a fancy clubbed together.
This set of tales was probably serialized originally, especially the second one on, from the tone of separate chapters - each a complete story, and yet they follow smoothly, flowing quite nicely one after another together.
The titles seem to indicate Anne's progress in life via the procession of widening circles they indicate - the house, the village, the island, and then they go specifying again, with house her home, and it's location.
One exasperation for a reader would be, when tempted by the beautiful descriptions of various places, one looks for just where it all is - and the place doesn't exist, or at least pieces don't match. Names are taken from wherever the author liked, and while descriptions might fit a place, it's hard to find just where any of them exists on maps.
............
............
Anne of Green Gables
The book begins with Mrs. Rachel Lynde, who is as much antithesis of Elizabeth from Elizabeth's German Garden as could be. That, one supposes after the protagonist appears, was a little bitter dose so the cherry cake Anne is that much more astounding, taking one by complete surprise.
It's a surprise that the protagonist is a little orphan girl arriving fresh at the home named Green Gables, rather than the woman of indeterminate age one sees on the cover, but that passes. Before long, before one knows, one is deep in comfort with Anne's world. The book is about halfway before one realises she's not going to be grown up in this volume, the author being in no hurry, and one is to enjoy the girlhood and the world thereof, with school and friends, teachers and walks in woods, and not talking to boys who are interested in one.
Nice to have descriptions of loveliness of nature and seasons strewn all over, but characterisation are good, and one expects Anne would grow out of hating Gilbert Blythe, which she is more than done already, long before they tie for top at entrance exam to Queen's.
And they are friends just as this ends, bringing satisfaction to reader despite the tragedy that smites in the silent Matthew departing and Marilla dealing with more.
June 26, 2020 - July 01, 2020.
............
Anne of Avonlea
Here we have Anne's career as a schoolteacher and beginning of society of her generation of Avonlea, with Gilbert Blythe now her close friend, apart from Diana (now courted by Fred Wright), and other schoolmates that had been at Queen's.
Her life now moreover is already centred on children, her pupils at school and twins at home who are Marilla's cousins.
Anne and her friends try to improve Avonlea by getting people to improve their properties and fronts, fences and sidewalks, but are confronted by unexpected problems, from mixups leading to a hall painted bright blue instead of green, to serious horrors looming in shape of people renting their fences for advertisements.
Anne lingers in girlhood, woods and flowers and children, with Gilbert still only a friend, although she's become aware he's growing out of boyhood. Her first acquaintance with the phenomenon of love is via a love story of two people of a prior generation, one a father of a favourite student and another she discovers living in a lovely house far out of the village, surrounded by a forest anne is enchanted with; the now middle aged woman finds a kindred spirit in the young boy so like his father, the love of her life.
And the romance does blossom, with Stephen Irving returning to marry Lavender Lewis finally, after Paul writes him about meeting her. But Marilla has the sensible comment:-
""I can't see that it's so terribly romantic at all," said Marilla rather crisply. Marilla thought Anne was too worked up about it and had plenty to do with getting ready for college without "traipsing" to Echo Lodge two days out of three helping Miss Lavendar. "In the first place two young fools quarrel and turn sulky; then Steve Irving goes to the States and after a spell gets married up there and is perfectly happy from all accounts. Then his wife dies and after a decent interval he thinks he'll come home and see if his first fancy'll have him. Meanwhile, she's been living single, probably because nobody nice enough came along to want her, and they meet and agree to be married after all. Now, where is the romance in all that?""
Exactly what those not fooled by the candy floss KJ copy, KKHH, thought. But meanwhile Anne is being sent off to college after all by Marilla, and that's the end of this part of the story and of her teaching Avonlea school for now, with a possible glimmer of romance with Gilbert Blythe on horizon.
July 01, 2020 - July 07, 2020.
............
Anne of the Island
One must give credit for continuity of the narrative that it picks up exactly where it left off, strengthening the guess that these were serialised writings published in periodicals before a suitable bunch was published as a book, rather than individual books published at intervals.
Changes are smooth - Diana Barry, engaged to Fred Wright back in Avonlea, has another path in life, and Priscilla Grant, familiar since Queen's, is now close friend and companion of Anne, who is at Redmond college at kingsport in Nova Scotia along with Gilbert Blythe and another Avonlea boy, Charlie Sloane. And now they meet Philippa Gordon from Bolingbroke, NS, where Anne originated.
Letters from Avonlea secured her life at college.
"Mrs. Lynde had more time than ever to devote to church affairs and had flung herself into them heart and soul. She was at present much worked up over the poor "supplies" they were having in the vacant Avonlea pulpit.
""I don't believe any but fools enter the ministry nowadays," she wrote bitterly. "Such candidates as they have sent us, and such stuff as they preach! Half of it ain't true, and, what's worse, it ain't sound doctrine. The one we have now is the worst of the lot. He mostly takes a text and preaches about something else. And he says he doesn't believe all the heathen will be eternally lost. The idea! If they won't all the money we've been giving to Foreign Missions will be clean wasted, that's what! Last Sunday night he announced that next Sunday he'd preach on the axe-head that swam. I think he'd better confine himself to the Bible and leave sensational subjects alone. Things have come to a pretty pass if a minister can't find enough in Holy Writ to preach about, that's what. What church do you attend, Anne? I hope you go regularly. People are apt to get so careless about church-going away from home, and I understand college students are great sinners in this respect. I'm told many of them actually study their lessons on Sunday. I hope you'll never sink that low, Anne."
This book is about change experienced through college years, with summers spent at home in Avonlea even as home is coming to be in two places. And instead of it being limited to light frolic and serious study - which is there, of course, with a couple of exasperating and very unexpected proposals Anne has to turn down, and a attempt at story writing that ends in disappointment at rejection by publishers - there is serious life too, with death of a beautiful friend from school, experienced deeply by Anne. And the anticlimactic winning of story competition because Diana Barry sent the story in without telling Anne, modifying it to suit the advertising of a baking powder, and Anne consequently winning twenty five dollars, to her great mortification! Splendid!
It only gets better thereafter, with millionaire neighbour asking to buy Mrs Lynde's gift of tulip patchwork quilt from Anne, the cats, and Aunt Jamesina, at Patty's Place. There's the very rich, beautiful and brainy Phillipa Gordon sharing this new home and consequently learning frugal life, and saying shopping for groceries was more fun than parties with beaux fighting over her.
It ends well, with several satisfactory weddings, and finally uniting Gilbert Blythe with Anne, after she's had every chance at her romantic fancies - refusing him, meeting the dark handsome Roy Gardner who promptly falls in love and courts her and proposes after graduation, realising she didnt love him, and finally understanding that she could only love Gilbert - so it's quite satisfactory.
July 07, 2020 - July 09, 2020.
............
Anne's House of Dreams
Three years have passed between where the last volume ends and this begins, and Anne has taught school at Summerside while Gilbert Blythe finished his medical school. Their wedding is set and he's to join his great uncle's practice or rather take it over, at Four Winds Point, and he's found a dream house for them - hence the title. Diana Wright, who'd had her son Fred as the last volume ends, meanwhile has a two year old daughter called Small Anne Cordelia, mystifying Avonlea. There's a beautiful wedding in the orchard, with Allens presiding and Philippa Gordon's husband Jonas Blake leading a prayer, a bird singing through it all.
Marilla keeps in her grief at Anne no longer living at Green Gables, and expecting her to visit no longer through every vacation, after the fourteen years of lighting up Marilla's life with love. But Anne's friends - Diana with babies, Allans and Irvings - stay through the evening to supper, comforting them, and the twins are grown and taking over. Marilla might grieve Anne, but she won't be left lonely.
Anne's new home, unlike Green Gables, is close to harbour, and it's her first close acquaintance with the ocean with its might, beauty and more. The author compares the difference of woods verses ocean as human society versus mighty lonely soul, and one gets a feeling on the other hand that a veiled comparison here is that of childhood versus adult life - woods being comparatively safe, comfy, beautiful, while ocean has all the unpredictability and lurking dangers one might encounter in life as adults. A glimpse thereof is already in the previous volume, where Anne meets her perfect romantic fantasy in Roy on seaside walk in heavy storm, and is brought back to the same spot by him when he proposes. Gilbert, on the other hand, proposes both times in woods, in a park first and in an overgrown garden finally. She rejects Roy and the uncertainty, because she realises she doesn't love him; she realises she loves Gilbert Blythe before he proposes again, and faces life in a harbour in a home facing the ocean - in secure company of the love and security thereof that she found in woods.
In a way, this progression runs parallel to that of her life moving from village of Avonlea to the college life in town of Kingsport, and then to the harbour of Four Winds, signifying possibilities of global travel and adventures.
This volume is as much about the beauty of a harbour as it's about the stunningly beautiful neighbour of Anne and Gilbert Blythe, Leslie Moore, and her travails, the very lovable Captain Jim whose life's story is entrusted to Owen Ford the incredibly handsome author, and it's all woven together in reflections somehow of light and ocean, mist and shore, lighthouse and garden. The resolution of it all is unexpected too, and answers the question one wonders about, which is, why isn't there more about the twins and Marilla and so on.
It's because they are there, doing fine, but life moves on, and Anne's life is blossoming. She and Gilbert are to buy a larger house with property across the harbour so it's convenient, and Owen Ford is buying the little house of drems so he and his bride Leslie can have vacations there.
July 09, 2020 - July 12, 2020.
............
Rainbow Valley
By the time one begins this one, one is hooked. Then comes the surprise, of Rainbow Valley - the title corresponding more to the various chikdren portrayed than the valley unseen by the reader, hence quite misty.
Now thirteen years have lapsed, Anne is a mother of half a dozen, the eldest who looks like both parents born before the family shifted at the end of the last one; next son a dreamer like Anne, twin daughters Anne and Diana who look one each like one of the parents except its diana who takes her mother's colouring, the youngest a six year old daughter Rilla - short, presumably, for Marilla - in Anne's own image, and another son; and the household at Ingleside still retains Susan Baker for housekeeping and cooking, while Cornelia Bryant - who'd married Marshall Elliott after Liberals won and he got a haircut and a shave, after seventeen years - still visits regularly. And Mrs rachel lynde disapproves of Susan pampering the children. The Blythe couple has been to Europe for summer as this opens and left children in Avonlea except one whom Susan kept, since he's her pet. Their gossip session is how the author introduces next batch of characters and their histories, characters and more.
There is a new minister, and the four Meredith children make friends with the Blythe children while the latter picnic at Rainbow Valley, so named by them because they saw a rainbow stretch over it once. Here the author has a variation of the Avonlea woods for Anne's children.
And then the Meredith children find a starving orphan and adopt her for a while, with no adult any wiser, before Cornelia Bryant steps in to correct the situation - and is coaxed by Una Meredith into adopting her! So now we have a kaleidoscope of variations of the original Anne, none quite like her, and some even boys. The author is far more comfortable with children, unless it was readers who steered the author. Anne is now in background, with occasional comments from her, in conversations with Gilbert Blythe, Susan, Cornelia Bryant and others.
Cornelia Bryant continues to be the window for a reader not well versed in politics of churches, politics between communities of different churches, and what's considered propriety, which are all startling if one assumed any of it had anything to do with values such as truth, humanity, or kindness. Hence the Meredith children being always in soup despite their goodness.
Trust Anne to set the gossipers right, and point out that Meredith family is an extraordinary collection of people with rare virtues.
The author ends the book with a double wedding in immediate future, Anne's eldest Jem going off to Queen's soon, and gives a hint of the impending WWI that none of them have foreseen, except for Ellen West, sister of Rosemary, the soon to be new Mrs Meredith.
July 12, 2020 - July 14, 2020.
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Rilla of Ingleside
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Chronicles of Avonlea
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Further Chronicles of Avonlea
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The Story Girl
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The Golden Road
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Kilmeny of the Orchard
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The Watchman and Other Poems
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The Short Story Collection
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July 30, 2020
Average rating = 3.5 stars
Anne of Green Gables (1908) - 4 stars
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Busy rereading the whole collection. Loved these books as a child and so far enjoying the walk down memory lane. Anne really does speak a lot though!
Anne of Avonlea (1909) - 3.5 stars
I didn't remember this one, so not sure if I actually did read it when I read the books as a tween. Didn't enjoy it as much as the first book, but still a sweet and enjoyable read.
Anne of the Island (1915) - 3 stars
I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two, but still a light read and nice distraction from real life
Anne's House of Dreams (1917) - 4 stars
I quite enjoyed this stage of Anne's life as she leaves Avonlea as a new bride to live with Gilbert in their own little "house of dreams". They befriend some lovely characters and there was happy times and sad times, but as always with Anne, love wins through.
Rainbow Valley (1919) - 3 stars
The series has moved on to focus on the next generation - those living in Glen St Mary and not Avonlea. Anne as the mother of one of "broods" is often mentioned in passing, but there is a little about her and her friends. The focus sits firmly on her children, and mostly on their friends from the church Manse. There are the regular trials and tribulations of little girls and boys plus some laughter and happiness.
Rilla of Ingleside (1921) - 4 stars
One of my favourites of the series. It's told from the perspective of Rilla, Anne's youngest, and covers a period from just before WW1 (when she's a bright eyed 15 year old with a head filled with romance and parties) to the end of the war four years later. During this period, life does not quite work out as the young Rilla imagined, and we follow her growth as a human and woman during the happy and sad events that follow. Although Canada was never bombed or invaded, the families who stayed behind were still impacted by what was happening in the rest of the world, and I found it interesting to read about it. Dog Monday also made me cry!
Chronicles of Avonlea - 4 stars
So this isn't a continuation of the Anne of Green Gables series like I thought, but a collection of short stories set in and around Avonlea. Anne makes a brief appearance in two of them, and warrants a reference in a couple others, and in other stories does not feature at all. There are also some other familiar Avonlea names scattered through the collection, but each story is its own story. I'm not terribly fond of short stories, but this compilation really worked for me for some reason. Perhaps because I've grown used to the style and the way there was a sense of something familiar in every story.
Furthere Chronicles of Avonlea - 3 stars
More stories from the characters who lived in and around Avonlea, with the common thread (mostly) being loves lost and found. I found it enjoyable except for the very last story which made me very uncomfortable because of its racist references. All normal for the times of LM Montgomery but very jarring in this day and age. I almost couldn't finish it.
Anne of Green Gables (1908) - 4 stars
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Busy rereading the whole collection. Loved these books as a child and so far enjoying the walk down memory lane. Anne really does speak a lot though!
Anne of Avonlea (1909) - 3.5 stars
I didn't remember this one, so not sure if I actually did read it when I read the books as a tween. Didn't enjoy it as much as the first book, but still a sweet and enjoyable read.
Anne of the Island (1915) - 3 stars
I didn't enjoy it as much as the first two, but still a light read and nice distraction from real life
Anne's House of Dreams (1917) - 4 stars
I quite enjoyed this stage of Anne's life as she leaves Avonlea as a new bride to live with Gilbert in their own little "house of dreams". They befriend some lovely characters and there was happy times and sad times, but as always with Anne, love wins through.
Rainbow Valley (1919) - 3 stars
The series has moved on to focus on the next generation - those living in Glen St Mary and not Avonlea. Anne as the mother of one of "broods" is often mentioned in passing, but there is a little about her and her friends. The focus sits firmly on her children, and mostly on their friends from the church Manse. There are the regular trials and tribulations of little girls and boys plus some laughter and happiness.
Rilla of Ingleside (1921) - 4 stars
One of my favourites of the series. It's told from the perspective of Rilla, Anne's youngest, and covers a period from just before WW1 (when she's a bright eyed 15 year old with a head filled with romance and parties) to the end of the war four years later. During this period, life does not quite work out as the young Rilla imagined, and we follow her growth as a human and woman during the happy and sad events that follow. Although Canada was never bombed or invaded, the families who stayed behind were still impacted by what was happening in the rest of the world, and I found it interesting to read about it. Dog Monday also made me cry!
Chronicles of Avonlea - 4 stars
So this isn't a continuation of the Anne of Green Gables series like I thought, but a collection of short stories set in and around Avonlea. Anne makes a brief appearance in two of them, and warrants a reference in a couple others, and in other stories does not feature at all. There are also some other familiar Avonlea names scattered through the collection, but each story is its own story. I'm not terribly fond of short stories, but this compilation really worked for me for some reason. Perhaps because I've grown used to the style and the way there was a sense of something familiar in every story.
Furthere Chronicles of Avonlea - 3 stars
More stories from the characters who lived in and around Avonlea, with the common thread (mostly) being loves lost and found. I found it enjoyable except for the very last story which made me very uncomfortable because of its racist references. All normal for the times of LM Montgomery but very jarring in this day and age. I almost couldn't finish it.
Read
June 19, 2023This book surprised me. It is certainly the most mature in the series, so it is hard to relate it to the story of the red-haired girl who was afraid of her own fantasies in the haunted forest.
I started reading this series because I wanted something light to take my mind off the problems. If you are looking for the same thing, it might be better to stop with the previous book - but I am glad I did not, even though it cost me two sleepless nights reading and shed tears in almost every chapter.
None of the sorrows from the other books - like Anne's life before Green Gables and the deaths of Matthew, Joy, and so many other beloved characters - could have prepared me for the tragedy that the residents of Ingleside experience. The endless waiting for news, the premature adulthood forced upon the children, and dreams that will never be fulfilled: Everything in this story recalls the horrors of war, while the characters cling to memories of happier times and hopes that often prove empty.
At one point, Anne herself reflects on the difference between her happy childhood in Green Gables and the darkness that blighted her children's youth. Anne's life was like a sunny, bright day occasionally overshadowed by clouds and storms, while Rilla's is like a dreary weather where the little rays of sunshine are as rare as they are sought and cherished.
I have often wondered if that's why Anne is no longer the main character and we only learn what she's feeling through Rilla's perspective - after all, it's almost inconceivable to us readers that the girl who accidentally dyed her hair green, the teenager who squeezed a lemon on her freckles to improve her appearance, or even the woman who felt an irrational jealousy of her husband's former girlfriend, is the same woman whom two daughters have distanced themselves from and who sent three sons off to war, one to never return.
We feel the same mixture of amusement and despair in Rilla's antics as we do in Anne's, but this time it is also constantly accompanied by a sense of melancholy. Even the funny situations in which Rilla finds herself have a touch of nostalgia for what was and what could have been.
What this book expresses and the feelings it evokes are not cheap and easy emotions - it is not just about making you cry for a few minutes. Without appealing to unnecessary or improbable drama, 'Rilla of Ingleside' simply tells of an ordinary young woman and her family, all always trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. This book may not move all readers to tears, but it will certainly leave an impression that will not soon go away.
I started reading this series because I wanted something light to take my mind off the problems. If you are looking for the same thing, it might be better to stop with the previous book - but I am glad I did not, even though it cost me two sleepless nights reading and shed tears in almost every chapter.
None of the sorrows from the other books - like Anne's life before Green Gables and the deaths of Matthew, Joy, and so many other beloved characters - could have prepared me for the tragedy that the residents of Ingleside experience. The endless waiting for news, the premature adulthood forced upon the children, and dreams that will never be fulfilled: Everything in this story recalls the horrors of war, while the characters cling to memories of happier times and hopes that often prove empty.
At one point, Anne herself reflects on the difference between her happy childhood in Green Gables and the darkness that blighted her children's youth. Anne's life was like a sunny, bright day occasionally overshadowed by clouds and storms, while Rilla's is like a dreary weather where the little rays of sunshine are as rare as they are sought and cherished.
I have often wondered if that's why Anne is no longer the main character and we only learn what she's feeling through Rilla's perspective - after all, it's almost inconceivable to us readers that the girl who accidentally dyed her hair green, the teenager who squeezed a lemon on her freckles to improve her appearance, or even the woman who felt an irrational jealousy of her husband's former girlfriend, is the same woman whom two daughters have distanced themselves from and who sent three sons off to war, one to never return.
We feel the same mixture of amusement and despair in Rilla's antics as we do in Anne's, but this time it is also constantly accompanied by a sense of melancholy. Even the funny situations in which Rilla finds herself have a touch of nostalgia for what was and what could have been.
What this book expresses and the feelings it evokes are not cheap and easy emotions - it is not just about making you cry for a few minutes. Without appealing to unnecessary or improbable drama, 'Rilla of Ingleside' simply tells of an ordinary young woman and her family, all always trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. This book may not move all readers to tears, but it will certainly leave an impression that will not soon go away.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 4, 2024
I enjoyed rediscovering the Anne of Green Gables series through this audiobook, which contains all the Anne novels except Anne of Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside (I listened to the separate audiobooks that are available for these titles), Chronicles of Avonlea and Further Chronicles of Avonlea. When I was a kid, I loved Anne of Green Gables but found the later novels about the adult Anne much less interesting. As an adult, while Anne of Green Gables is still my favourite book in the series, I have a greater appreciation for Anne of the Island (where Anne becomes the first woman from Avonlea to attend college), the gothic tale of Anne's House of Dreams, and especially Rilla of Ingleside, which provides a compelling portrait of the home front in Prince Edward Island during the First World War. Some of the stories in the Avonlea Chronicles books provided inspiration for episodes in Road to Avonlea TV series and it's interesting to see how they were reworked to fit into the series. Montgomery writes about nature beautifully and provides subtle hints of time passing in the Anne novels including Rachel Lynde's concern that young women are reading the Eaton's Catalogue on Sundays in Anne's House of Dreams and Anne and her daughter going to Charlottetown to see a film in Rilla of Ingleside.
October 20, 2022
Hours and Hours of beautiful storytelling, but some disappointment in performance, and exclusions of books.
The Anne of Green Gables series has been a favourite of mine since a child. So finding a collection of the stories in one audiobook was an exciting find. L. M. Montgomery is a beautiful storyteller, and Anne and her friends have become a part of my own story of life with their charm, love stories, comedy, tragedy and all the other feelings in between.
There were a couple of things that let down this package for me; the change in narrator for the last couple of books, a couple of the books were missing, and the lack of chapter titles to find your way in the book. Anne of Windy Willows and Anne of Ingleside were missing which is disappointing. Even though it is listed as such, it doesn't make sense to not include them.
Susie Berneis and Tara Ward did great at narrating for the most part, but not only do I prefer to listen to one voice tell all the stories (as each narrator brings something different to the characters) there were also some inconsistencies within each narrators portrayal of the characters, not just because they were growing up. Otherwise a good performance from both.
The Anne of Green Gables series has been a favourite of mine since a child. So finding a collection of the stories in one audiobook was an exciting find. L. M. Montgomery is a beautiful storyteller, and Anne and her friends have become a part of my own story of life with their charm, love stories, comedy, tragedy and all the other feelings in between.
There were a couple of things that let down this package for me; the change in narrator for the last couple of books, a couple of the books were missing, and the lack of chapter titles to find your way in the book. Anne of Windy Willows and Anne of Ingleside were missing which is disappointing. Even though it is listed as such, it doesn't make sense to not include them.
Susie Berneis and Tara Ward did great at narrating for the most part, but not only do I prefer to listen to one voice tell all the stories (as each narrator brings something different to the characters) there were also some inconsistencies within each narrators portrayal of the characters, not just because they were growing up. Otherwise a good performance from both.
March 20, 2024
This would be a wholesome collection with some causal racism. The racism isn't super deep but was off putting. I just found things odd where people would act like the sky is falling over someone almost ALMOST saying darn but not batting a eye with the n word being thrown, natives being called savages, referring to asian as heathens and so on.
Then characters would get really upset when anyone said something about how they looked. That same character fat shame and said some of the most shallow things. It was just weird that she wasn't challenged at all.
Basically there is a lot of goodness here if you aren't in the group being put down.
Another problem I had with this collection was the change in readers. One lady read the book like she was a robot. Luckily she didn't last long but she pretty much ruins at least one book.
Then characters would get really upset when anyone said something about how they looked. That same character fat shame and said some of the most shallow things. It was just weird that she wasn't challenged at all.
Basically there is a lot of goodness here if you aren't in the group being put down.
Another problem I had with this collection was the change in readers. One lady read the book like she was a robot. Luckily she didn't last long but she pretty much ruins at least one book.
December 6, 2020
I either can't do the Collection justice or I can't be kind. First the Anne collection. Loved it. Second The Story Girl books. Loved but not as much as Anne but then it was really books of short stories as told by the girl while giving a running commentary on a period of her life from the boy Beverley's point of view. Whoever heard of a boy called Beverley? As for the rest the only memorable part was where I discovered that Montgomery was a vile racist and had I discovered this earlier I should have stopped reading then but as it was I was too close to the end. If you can overlook this facet then you shall enjoy the collection far more than I for her hateful racism reduced me to a fury I rarely feel while reading.
June 23, 2025
Anne of Green Gables isn’t just a book—it’s an experience. The kind where you sink into the pages and suddenly you’re barefoot in a field, feeling every breeze, every heartbreak, every burst of joy right alongside Anne.
The writing is gorgeous without being heavy, full of charm and whimsy, and Anne herself? She’s a chaotic, beautiful mess of imagination and soul who made me want to dream bigger, feel deeper, and be unapologetically me.
No spoilers, but if you’ve been feeling a little frayed around the edges or just need a gentle, spirited reminder that the world can still be wonderful—this book is your sign.
5 stars, obviously.
The writing is gorgeous without being heavy, full of charm and whimsy, and Anne herself? She’s a chaotic, beautiful mess of imagination and soul who made me want to dream bigger, feel deeper, and be unapologetically me.
No spoilers, but if you’ve been feeling a little frayed around the edges or just need a gentle, spirited reminder that the world can still be wonderful—this book is your sign.
5 stars, obviously.
January 25, 2019
I wanted to love this book. I really really did. But it didn't hold my interest. I think it would be different if I'd read it when I was young and found some kind of common ground with Anne, but I just wasn't feeling this one. The version of this that I bought has all the Anne stories in it, and I'll likely read the next one ("Anne of Avonlea") because I like her much more as a teenager and I enjoy the people in her community. And hey, I want to see what happens with the guy. Because I'm only human. ;)
January 3, 2022
This little series has been SO sweet to read with my 5 year old daughter through the summer. We have enjoyed reading about Anne's childhood and her journey through college and into adulthood. We are almost finished with the very last book (Rilla of Ingleside) and I hope she remembers Anne as a part of her childhood, and that she turns back to those pages again and again and she learns to read on her own.
February 15, 2021
Anne of Green Gables is one of my all-time favorite characters. The mischief-proned orphan girl who finds a forever home and changes the lives of many around her is heart-warming, humorous and enlightening. This series takes you through her life as a preteen through her marriage and children, It's a beautiful, delightful classic set.
April 12, 2021
The first few books are fine, the first being my favorite, but near the end the books start to altogether be about other characters who I honestly don't care to hear about.
Its fine, some good even, but I don't think I'd read the series again.
The body shaming and racial slur use being sprinkled in throughout the series are also things I don't appreciate...
Its fine, some good even, but I don't think I'd read the series again.
The body shaming and racial slur use being sprinkled in throughout the series are also things I don't appreciate...
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