Anne of Green Gables - I have questions

[drspouse]

So, I'm listening to this on Sleepy Bookshelf.
I really like it, having not read it as a child, and I'm wondering:
Are all the others worth reading?
What order do they come in? The listed order doesn't seem to match up with the dates.
And very important:
What kind of currants went into the currant wine? Because I understood that blackcurrants were banned in North America. Or is that recent? Or are these redcurrants?

I thought they were blackcurrants. AOGG is set on Price Edward Island, which is Canadian; so the laws may differ. series is
Anne Of Green Gables
Anne Of Avonlea
Anne Of The Island
Anne Of Windy Willows (or Windy Poplars)
Anne's House Of Dreams
Anne Of Ingleside
Rainbow Valley
Rilla Of Ingleside.
Rilla Of

Sorry, last line was a duplicate.

I assumed it was currants in the sense of small grapes, but all the literary foodie blogs seem to say that they were redcurrants - hence the confusion with raspberry cordial.

My favourite after AoGG itself is Anne of the Island.

I don't like the one where she is the school
teacher (Windy Poplars) and some of the later ones get dull. There is one bit in Anne's House of Dreams which makes me very emotional so do recommend that it you like a bit of a sobread

The reading order — how old Anne is and what life stage she’s at — doesn’t match the order in which LMM wrote the books, which have a messy publication history because of disputes with publishers and the fact that she kept being asked for more Anne books.

If you scroll down here, there’s a reasonably accurate list of the reading timeline: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables#Related_works

Agree, Anne of the Island is my favourite. Anne of Avonlea kind of carries on from An e of Green Gables and has a lot of stories about the locals of Avonlea. Windy Poplars has her working in a school at a different setting. Anne's House of Dreams is about her life when she first gets married. It is more grown up than the others and has some sad parts. I haven't read any of the later ones.

www.fadedpage.com/csearch.php?author=Montgomery%2C%20L.%20M.%20%28Lucy%20Maud%29

(They’re all available to read free here at Faded Page, incidentally (and lots of her others, including the — to me — far superior Emily books).

The first two books are the best, in my opinion, but the others might be worth reading.

Similar to the pp, I didn't care for the Anne as school principal in Windy Poplars, and I do think the TV series version 'AOGG The Sequel' (starring Megan Follows) improved upon that storyline, though 'The Continuing Story' is probably best forgotten.

I've never read her 'Emily' books @SnakeLinguine are those connected to the Chronicles of Avonlea at all?

The Emily books are a thing apart. They're totally different. Emily is melancholic and her life is darker. L.M. Montgomery far preferred them.

Anne's House of Dreams is lovely for anyone starting a family.

The Chronicles of Avonlea weren't intended for publication and were taken against the author's wishes. They show where she lifted descriptive passages and used them somewhere else instead, leading to repetitions. There is very little of Anne in them. She isn't really a key figure in the Anne books after Anne of Ingleside.

For sheer comfort reading, The Blue Castle is very lovely.

The first series of the Netflix adaptation (Anne with an E) offers fascinating insights into how aspects of Anne's character are linked to trauma.

I didn't find the latest ones dull though.

I only read the first two when I was a girl, but got the whole set for DD. The last one, Rilla of Ingleside taught me a few things about WWI from a Canadian perspective.

Rilla of Ingleside, set in WW1, famously has a very, very poignant dog scene which has reduced many people to tears. I, for one, can never reread that one!!
The last couple of books are mostly about the lives and loves of Anne's children.
I agree with the previous poster who said that they loved The Blue Castle. It's a lovely book and a bit of a Cinderella story. It was famously plagiarised by Colleen McCullough who sexed it up and called it The Ladies of Missalonghi. I own both books and the plagiarism is really, really blatant! I believe CMcC ended up having to pay compensation to LMM's estate after the plagiarism was pointed out.

I love these books so much. Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea can be thought of as one book in two volumes, they fit well together. Agree at how good Anne of the Island is.

I think Windy Willows can be buoyed as a stand-alone but really isn’t necessary to the ongoing story.

I enjoyed but am less keen on Rainbow Valley and Anne of Ingleside. The former isn’t from Anne’s perspective and the latter was a bit too adult for me as a child.

Love Rilla of Ingleside. Fascinating from a historical point of view and I adore some new characters.

The Emily books are amazing too but while I admire Emily I never idolised her or wanted to know her the way I did Anne. As a child I really wanted someone with Anne’s empathy and imagination in my life. She was like an imaginary big sister to me. So dreamy but also so practical.

I was heavily involved in caring for my baby sister when I was a child so Anne’s combination of dreaminess and making up stories in her head mixed with the practicalities of minding those sets of twins felt like I’d met a kindred spirit 😂.

Everyone needs a kindred spirit

@ArabeI

I've never read her 'Emily' books *@SnakeLinguine* are those connected to the Chronicles of Avonlea at all?

No, other than also being set on a fictionalised version of Prince Edward Island. Like Anne, Emily is a highly-imaginative, sensitive orphan, but she’s taken in by relatives of her long-dead mother after her father’s death.

@TheMadGardener

Rilla of Ingleside, set in WW1, famously has a very, very poignant dog scene which has reduced many people to tears. I, for one, can never reread that one!! The last couple of books are mostly about the lives and loves of Anne's children. I agree with the previous poster who said that they loved The Blue Castle. It's a lovely book and a bit of a Cinderella story. It was famously plagiarised by Colleen McCullough who sexed it up and called it The Ladies of Missalonghi. I own both books and the plagiarism is really, really blatant! I believe CMcC ended up having to pay compensation to LMM's estate after the plagiarism was pointed out.

I'm glad to know that. I always thought she'd ripped it off, but I never saw an official take on it before. I also love Jane Of Lantern Hill.

I adore Jane of Lantern Hill, @sueelleker.

(Despite the fact that Freud would have a field day with Jane cutting out a photo of a man she doesn’t yet know is her father from a newspaper and keeping it in her hanky drawer to ‘commune with’, then ends up housekeeping capably for him as a sort of placeholder for her useless, pretty, absent mother until she reunites them. )

I think the popularity of the Anne books is completely because all children feel like she's a kindred spirit. Both myself and my best friend thought we were Anne and thought the other was Diana .

@JaninaDuszejko

I think the popularity of the Anne books is completely because all children feel like she's a kindred spirit. Both myself and my best friend thought we were Anne and thought the other was Diana .

. I love that. Did you fall out when you each kept insisting you were the imaginative redheads heroine, and the other was her admiring sidekick?

I’m re-reading Anne of Avonlea & feeling rather sorry for Dora Keith. I wonder if she realised Davy was the favourite?

Rilla is one of my favourite books of all time.

@SnakeLinguine

I adore Jane of Lantern Hill, *@sueelleker*.

(Despite the fact that Freud would have a field day with Jane cutting out a photo of a man she doesn’t yet know is her father from a newspaper and keeping it in her hanky drawer to ‘commune with’, then ends up housekeeping capably for him as a sort of placeholder for her useless, pretty, absent mother until she reunites them. )

Oh yes, I love Jane of Lantern Hill too! There was a film version with Sam Waterston as the dad but it put rather a "woo" mystical spin on the story instead of doing it straight. The terrible autocratic grandmother is a great character.

@EmpressaurusWitchDoesntBurn

I’m re-reading Anne of Avonlea & feeling rather sorry for Dora Keith. I wonder if she realised Davy was the favourite?

I think it’s lucky they were in a rural community and Davy seemed keen enough on farming that he’s have a happy settled life. I think in modern times he’d be a young man who never settled at anything because school wasn’t for him, and poor Dora would be trying to live a sensible life with her feckless brother constantly on her sofa 😂

I do love Davy’s letters. ‘Why, Anne? I want to know’ about everything you could imagine 🤣🤣🤣

Oh, the Blue Castle, and Valancy! I'd forgotten that was one of LMM's.

I recall, similar to a pp, that as a child I was disappointed in the more staid, married Anne in the later books; recall some jealousy of Christine, which for some reason stood out amongst the examples.