SOURCE: Foster, Shirley, and Judy Simons. “L. M. Montgomery: Anne of Green Gables.” In What Katy Read: Feminist Re-Readings of ‘Classic’ Stories for Girls, pp. 149-71. London: Macmillan, 1995.

In the following excerpt, Foster and Simons consider the ways in which Anne of Green Gables circumvents archetypical girls’ literature.

In August 1907, a few months after Anne of Green Gables had been accepted for publication, Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote joyfully in her Journal:

Well, I've written my book. The dream dreamed years ago in that old brown desk in school has come true at last after years of toil and struggle. And the realization is sweet—almost as sweet as the dream!¹

The novel, which appeared in June 1908, was, like most of the other books discussed in this study, an overnight success, despite its modest beginnings. As Montgomery herself explains:

Two years ago in the spring of 1905 I was looking...