to think anne shirley may be the best literary heroine

[scarednoob]

but to have a sneaking soft spot for Rupert Campbell-Black as the hero?

and if IABU, who are your favourites?

[badgersinthewillow]

I've always had a fondness for Sara Crewe, although she's not really a feminist!

[FuzzyWizard]

Love both Anne (with an e) and Sara Crewe. Anne is a character very very close to my heart. I also loved Jo March.

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

I loved Anne until I discovered LMM's trilogy Emily of New Moon.

And then I loved Emily more.

But nothing will ever surpass my death defying passion for Gilbert Blythe.

[scarednoob]

I mostly remember being very jealous of her doll Emily and all its lovely clothes when I read that book, so I guess at the time I wasn't either :)

[scarednoob]

oooh very, despite being a huge anne fan, I've never read any other LM books. I went mad on amazon and ordered the lot earlier in the week, including the 9th anne book "the blythes are quoted", and all the Emily ones arrived THIS MORNING! glees

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

I also loved Jo March.

Oh yes, Jo.

And also the arch Amy. Amy got her own way. Someone actually wrote a degree thesis on Amy March being one of the first literary feminists.

Meg was a drip.

But poor, poor Beth.

[KatieScarlett]

Katie Scarlett O'Hara

[CaptainBrickbeard]

Anne is a brilliant role model, I love her. Very excited about other LMM books!

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

Emily is a more "difficult" character than Anne. She is the writer than initially it looks like Anne might be, if teaching, Gilbert and babies (six!) hadn't interfered.

LMM certainly had an affinity for orphans, possibly because she was one.

[scarednoob]

oh god, how could I have forgotten scarlett? argh, torn...

I know, the bit where beth dies - "and on the bosom where she took her first breath, she quietly took her last" - sob sob sob. nan was one of my favourite characters too. love the march books, but Alcott did like to moralise a bit about being a good little woman at the end of every single chapter.

[manyathingyouknow]

Vanity and Vexation of Spirit is my favourite chapter in a book EVER!!!

Would love to visit PEI.

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

Have you read all six Anne books, OP?

I've read all 6 of the Anne series but not the later novels that LMM wrote about her children ("Rilla of Ingleside" etc).

I read the Anne series as a child and missed a piece of bad news at the end of book 6 ("Anne of Ingleside"). It was not until I reread the book as an adult that I understood what the author was alluding to.

Don't want to say what it is if you haven't read book.

[KatieScarlett]

Katie Scarlett O'Hara judges you scarednoob

[scarednoob]

there's also the girls from "ballet shoes", I love noel streatfeild too. you can get "the whicharts" now, which is the first version of that book, written for adults. GUM wasn't a kindly old man who liked to adopt orphans, but rather a bit of a sleazebag who dumped his illegitimate daughters on a discarded lover, it's much darker!

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

Would love to visit PEI.

I have a friend who recently did. She was on a holiday tour with a group of people a lot older than her. They went to the Anne museum on PEI and all got into Anne costume.

She showed us a photo of them all dressed up as "school" Anne, with pigtails and straw bunnet. Imagine a 60 something male LMM enthusiast dressed up as Anne Shirley. It looked great fun.

[scarednoob]

hahahaha Katie, now I know how the raiding Yankees felt...

very oh yes, I have read them all to death! I was so excited when I went to america as a child and found out there were 2 more - why they only published the first 6 over here when I was little is a mystery!

she actually wrote them in this order - green gables, Avonlea, island, house of dreams, rainbow valley, rilla of Ingleside, windy willows/poplar, anne of Ingleside I think - which explains that sad bit about walter and the premonition of the "grave somewhere in france" and the amazing bit about jem and his dog with its legendary devotion, because she'd already written those parts years before :)

which bit did you mean?

[scarednoob]

I am desperate to see PEI. i'd also love to follow the ingalls family trail and see all the places they lived. laura of the books is amazing (giving her the benefit of the fact that it was 140 years ago for the racism against the native americans) but omg the television series should never have been made!

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

Alcott did like to moralise a bit about being a good little woman at the end of every single chapter.

That was what put me off her series in the end. And the shame of it was, I think these homilies were entirely an imposition by her publishers.

Alcott herself lived her private life on her own terms and was very independent. She adopted her namesake, her sister May's (Amy) child after her death.

There was a biography published about Alcott called Invinsible Louisa.

[QueenofallIsee]

I adored Anne as a child but Emily of New Moon is much more likeable - Anne can be a tad smug when you read as an adult, Emily is flawed so more believable somehow. That said, Anne will never be ousted from my affections - Have read all the LLM PEI books i think, never failing to sob when Matthew dies or at Rilla of Ingleside repeatedly!

I understand from essays that i have read that LLM preferred Emily as well and found Anne wearing after a while, but her enduring popularity meant she had to keep writing about her

[VeryBitchyRestingFace]

which explains that sad bit about walter and the premonition of the "grave somewhere in france

That's the bit.

I never picked up on the foreshadowing as a child. (thick)

[scarednoob]

the LMM character who gets slated online is poor old pat of silver bush. not read those yet; they should be in the package with my Emily books, but she gets ripped a new one by every single review online that I've seen. most people seem to think she needs professional help. so that should be interesting

[scarednoob]

I always felt sorry for Shirley in that book. each of the other kids gets at least one story, but poor old Shirley just gets to be Susan's favourite and then to head off to war with his brothers.

plus his name is Shirley. I can't imagine that going down too well in the army.

[Lentilsmama]

What about Laura Ingalls Wilder? I was obsessed with those books when I was younger!

[RhiWrites]

I don't really like Anne Shirley. In book one she's so imaginative and outrageous. After that I find her dull. Emily Byrd Starr is much more sympathetic.

[ilovesooty]

My favourite LMM book is The Blue Castle and its central character Valency Stirling my favourite literary heroine.