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?

I've read all her books, downloaded for peanuts onto my Kindle. I read all the Anne books over forty years ago and Rilla of Ingleside is still my favourite. Written after the war, it's poignant in the fact LMM thinks that was 'the war to end all wars'. It's written with pathos. Laughter and tragedy all blended together.

Valancy, apologies.
Another favourite of mine is Fancy from A Woman Called Fancy by Frank Yerby.

I wanted to be Anne, Sara and Amy (March) but the narrator of Rebecca always sticks in my mind as the person I was - especially the bit where she thinks the word "modest" means not liking to be seen going down a corridor with only a bathroom at the end of it. That was so true of me at the time.

Yanbu.

I have the dvd of the tv series and it's perfect.

Though I saw a film adaptation with Martin Sheen as Matthew the other week and it was quite good.

Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was fantastic and I have read and reread the books so many times. But I loved Anne Shirley and Jo March too. The Canadian series of Anne of Green Gables on TV in the 90s was amazing! I also liked Katy from the Katy Did books. Remember the accident with the swing and all the things she got up to at school with Clover? (I read an awful lot as a child ...)

Very resting bitch - please tell me what this allusion was to. I must have missed that completely and have no time to go back and read them again! Please I must know!

what about Katy and Clover's school friend, Rose Red.. she seemed just about the most fun person ever…. gay, they'd have said back then...

Katy became an insufferable prig after that accident.

The Emily books have a truly astonishing proportion of psychotic pet-killing, though. That weird mother of Teddy's who keeps drowning or poisoning his pets, anyone? Even her sad back story is a definite Run for theHills moment!

YANBU. I've loved Anne since I was 9. I used to imagine my wardrobe was a time-travelling portal between our worlds and I could go and see her in PEI and dress up in Victorian clothes, then she would come to mine and I'd have to explain things like cars and aeroplanes to her.
I re-read the books every few years but recently have been listening to the audio books. I got to Matthew's death when I was out running in a busy park - that was fun trying not to wail!

Anne Elliot is my favourite literary heroine. Quiet yet strong.

Adored Anne and am sad my daughters are just not interested in reading it, though one is quite enjoying Laura Ingalls.
Am going to reread the Anne books on my own, starting tomorrow!

Did anyone see the Canadian series Road
To Avonlea? Set in the same era and same time as Anne of Green Gables.

I grew up with it, and also am desperate to go to PEI. Oddly it's cheaper to fly there now that I live in London than it was when I lived in Vancouver!

I haven't read it, but a book has been written fairly recently (within the last 6 ish years?) called Before Green Gables. Obviously not written by LMM but it tells Anne's story before she went to live with Marilla and Matthew.

I was just checking when the Anne of Green Gables series was made (actually 1985) and am horrified to see that the actor who played Gilbert Blythe is dead. He was gorgeous and the perfect Gilbert.
user see www.anneofgreengables.com. You can buy the DVDs there but I bet they are on YouTube and amazon too.

That tv series gave me the rage as a child. They mashed the books together and changed stuff and she wasn't even a proper redhead.... Grrrrr!!

All that wittering on about her hair. Self absorbed. I preferred Laura Ingalls wilder.

I liked Dido Twite from the Joan Aiken books. She was very resourceful.

As a kid I identified with William of Just William, also George of the Famous Five. Couldn't be doing with Green Gables or Little Women - they seemed lame.

As an adult, I'm enjoying Becky Sharp - recently listening to the audiobook of Vanity Fair, which I last read as a teenager and she was wasted on me, then.

I loved LM Montgomery's Emily of New Moon books as a child, because they were darker and more complicated than the Anne series, but rereading them a few years ago, I realised Emily, while still interesting, was an insufferable snob and incredibly vain purple-eyed attention seeker!

I used to imagine my wardrobe was a time-travelling portal between our worlds and I could go and see her in PEI and dress up in Victorian clothes, then she would come to mine and I'd have to explain things like cars and aeroplanes to her.

I used to do this! Well, not the time travelling wardrobe bit, but I used to imagine spending time with Anne. I spent half my childhood wondering what Anne of Green Gables would have thought of things.

All of the Anne books on kindle for 99p! That's my reading sorted for the week.

Francis Cornford I agree with you about Nicola Marlowe. Although as a child I always fancied myself as Lawrie - not sure why.

I loved the Anne books and downloaded them onto my Kindle a few years ago, I still reread them occasionally. I agree with the pp who said that Shirley gets a bit shortchanged as he doesn't get his own story.

As an adult I appreciate the later books more than the earler ones. I love the story of Lesley Ford - there's a poster on here with the username of Persis Ford so I'm guessing she's an Anne fan as well.