Anne of Green Gables

Virginia Gillham is university librarian and archivist at Wilfrid
Laurier University library. She is also a judge of national and
international figure skating competions.

This scholarly edition of the original 1908 imprint of Anne of Green
Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery is intended for students and teachers.
The text of the novel itself is the original version, including the
original illustrations. The book is heavily footnoted, with almost every
page containing two or three footnotes, some of which occupy as much as
half of the page.

Beyond the annotated text, the volume includes almost 100 pages of
scholarly and background information. There is an extensive gender
analysis of both the content of the story and the relevant real-life
philosophy of Montgomery. Despite her own very successful career and
obvious intellectual interests, the author was quite conservative in her
attitude to the philosophies of the feminists and suffragettes of her
time, and quite firm in her belief in the priority of a woman’s
“duty.”

The book includes detailed analysis of the very complex publishing
history of all of Montgomery’s writings, including her lengthy legal
disputes with her original publisher, L.C. Page of Boston. Appendix A
identifies and records earlier Montgomery writings adapted for inclusion
in Anne of Green Gables. Appendix B further explores her ambivalent
views toward feminism by excerpting her writings that appear to support
conflicting views. A useful four-page bibliography completes this
edition.

Readers whose interest in L.M. Montgomery has been awakened or
reawakened by the publication of her diaries in five volumes over the
past 20 years will find that the scholarly information in this edition
answers many questions and fills a number of factual gaps.