Looking for Anne of Green Gables

For over a century, Anne Shirley has captivated readers with her fiery red hair, boundless imagination, and plucky spirit.

First introduced as the protagonist of Anne of Green Gables in 1908, she quickly became one of fiction’s most iconic characters, with the novel selling over 50 million copies and translated into more than forty languages. Yet little is known about Anne’s origins. Her creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery, a farm girl from Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, was an intensely private person.

In Looking for Anne of Green Gables, Irene Gammel draws on her archival discoveries, and on the author’s private journals to reveal an emotional landscape of longing, loss, and a deep yearning for connection—themes that found their way into her famous novel. Blending biography and cultural history, Gammel traces the parallel journeys of Montgomery and her beloved heroine, showing how the author’s personal grief was transformed into the triumphs and joys of Anne Shirley. This dual biography of Montgomery and her timeless character explains how a literary classic was conceived and why it continues to enchant readers today.