Canadian · b. 1874
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
L.M. Montgomery was a Canadian author whose Anne of Green Gables series introduced one of literature's most beloved heroines and has sold over 50 million copies in over 36 languages.
Lucy Maud Montgomery published Anne of Green Gables in 1908 after being rejected by five publishers, and its success surprised everyone, including the author. Set on Prince Edward Island, where Montgomery was born and raised, the novel follows Anne Shirley — a red-haired, fiercely imaginative orphan who talks too much, imagines too deeply, and insists on finding beauty everywhere — as she is placed with elderly siblings who expected a boy. It became one of the most beloved children’s novels ever written and established the PEI landscape as a literary destination.
What keeps Anne of Green Gables alive more than a century later is not just the warmth of its heroine but the quality of Montgomery’s writing. She captures both the humor and the anguish of childhood without condescension, and her descriptions of rural Prince Edward Island have the specificity of genuine love. Anne herself — romantic, dramatic, intellectually hungry, perpetually in trouble — is one of the few characters from children’s fiction who feels as real to adult readers as she did when they first encountered her as children.
The novel has not escaped criticism. Its cultural attitudes reflect the period’s assumptions about race and class, which modern readers will note. The subsequent sequels in the series vary in quality, with some later volumes feeling more obligatory than inspired. But Anne of Green Gables itself endures because it takes a child’s inner life with complete seriousness, and because its heroine — stubborn, ridiculous, and completely alive — refuses to be anything other than herself.
L. M. Montgomery was a Canadian author who created one of the most beloved characters in all of children’s literature, the irrepressible Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables. Writing largely about the rural world of her native Prince Edward Island, Montgomery produced warm, vivid, and emotionally rich novels that have enchanted readers around the world for more than a century. Her gift for character, her evocation of the natural beauty of the Canadian landscape, and her blend of humour, sentiment, and gentle wisdom have made her work enduringly popular and earned her a permanent place among the classic authors of fiction for young readers.
Montgomery’s masterpiece, Anne of Green Gables, tells the story of Anne Shirley, a talkative, imaginative, red-haired orphan girl mistakenly sent to an elderly brother and sister on a Prince Edward Island farm. Anne’s irrepressible spirit, her flights of imagination, her scrapes and triumphs, and her gradual winning of the hearts of those around her have made her one of the most cherished characters in literature. The novel’s warmth, humour, and emotional truth struck an immediate chord on its publication, and it has remained a beloved classic, translated into many languages and adapted countless times.
A defining feature of Montgomery’s fiction is her loving evocation of Prince Edward Island, whose landscapes, seasons, and rural communities she rendered with vivid beauty and affection. The natural world is a constant presence in her work, described with a lyrical sensitivity that reflects Anne’s own delight in beauty, and the island setting has become inseparable from her stories. This richly realised sense of place, with its orchards, woods, and shores, gives her novels their distinctive atmosphere and has drawn generations of readers and admirers to the real island that inspired them.
Anne Shirley endures as one of fiction’s great heroines because of her vivid, fully realised character. Imaginative, passionate, talkative, and prone to both dramatic mishaps and deep feeling, Anne is utterly alive on the page, and her growth from an unwanted orphan into a beloved young woman is traced with humour and tenderness across the series. Her imagination, her resilience, her capacity for joy, and her longing to belong have made her an inspiring and relatable figure for readers of all ages, and a model of spirited individuality cherished for over a century.
Anne of Green Gables is the first of a series following Anne through girlhood, education, marriage, and motherhood, allowing readers to grow alongside their beloved heroine across many volumes. Beyond the Anne books, Montgomery wrote other popular series and standalone novels, including the Emily trilogy, which is often considered more closely autobiographical and is admired for its portrait of a young girl’s literary ambitions. This substantial body of work offers readers a rich world to explore beyond Anne, unified by Montgomery’s warmth, her insight into young hearts, and her love of beauty.
The lasting appeal of Montgomery’s fiction lies in its combination of warmth, humour, and genuine emotional truth. While her novels are often gentle and reassuring, they also engage real feelings of longing, grief, ambition, and belonging, and they take the inner lives of girls and young women seriously. This emotional honesty, balanced by comedy and a fundamental hopefulness, gives her work a depth beneath its charm, and it explains why her novels continue to move and delight new generations of readers around the world.
L. M. Montgomery’s influence on children’s literature is profound, and Anne of Green Gables remains one of the most beloved and widely read novels ever written for young people, sustaining a devoted following and a thriving cultural legacy. For newcomers, Anne of Green Gables is the essential starting point and the gateway to the Anne series, while the Emily books offer a more introspective alternative. For readers of any age seeking warm, vivid, and heartfelt fiction filled with imagination, humour, and the beauty of the natural world, Montgomery is a cherished and enduring author.
Those who have read the highlights will find more to admire in Anne’s House of Dreams.
by L.M. Montgomery
An imaginative, red-haired orphan is accidentally sent to Avonlea instead of the boy the Cuthbert siblings expected — and changes their lives and the whole town forever.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)
by L.M. Montgomery
Anne Shirley leaves Avonlea for Redmond College, where she discovers new friendships, navigates romantic confusion, and must finally decide between the persistent Roy Gardner and the friend she has always taken for granted.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)
by L.M. Montgomery
After her father's death, Emily Starr goes to live with her strict Murray aunts at New Moon Farm on Prince Edward Island, where she discovers her calling as a writer and resists every pressure to suppress it.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)
by L.M. Montgomery
Anne Shirley is now sixteen and a teacher at Avonlea school, navigating new friendships, her growing responsibilities at Green Gables, and the same imaginative intensity that has always defined her.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)
by L.M. Montgomery
Newly married, Anne and Gilbert settle in their dream home by the sea in Four Winds Harbour, where Anne befriends the tragic and beautiful Leslie Moore and the loveable ship's captain Jim Boyd.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)
by L.M. Montgomery
The fourth Anne of Green Gables novel. Engaged to Gilbert but separated by his medical studies, Anne spends three years as principal of Summerside High School, boarding at Windy Poplars and winning over a town wary of newcomers — told largely through her letters home.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)Disclosure: Amazon links on this page are affiliate links. If you purchase through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.