Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic is the definitive book about Anne, the mythical child of Green Gables, and Lucy Maud Montgomery—the fascinating woman who created her.

Anne of Green Gables is known and loved by millions of people around the world. It was published in 1908, and has never gone out of print since that date, selling more than 50 million copies. But while the story of the spunky little red-headed girl is still enduring after 100 years, how did she actually come about? Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic by Irene Gammel, is the first book to explore the real story behind the imaginary Anne. And much of what Gammel reveals in Looking for Anne—secrets that have remained hidden for more than a century—is sure to intrigue and surprise Anne’s loyal fans.

Lucy Maud Montgomery herself acknowledged that Anne mirrored her own dreams and fantasies, memories and emotions. But Montgomery was a secretive person and, as Gammel points out, unravelling the story of Anne’s life is like “peeling an onion. This book takes readers inside Maud’s guarded life not only by reading between the lines of her unpublished journal entries for the period, but by looking beyond the conventional sources that Maud wanted us to see. Looking for Anne highlights the sources that are not found among L.M. Montgomery’s papers but that were crucially relevant to the creation of her story: the sources and pieces of writing she discarded or simply forgot.”

In doing this, Gammel makes it clear that Anne wasn’t born “in a flash,” as Montgomery asserted, but evolved through a complex process, influenced by a large cast of characters, among them New York model Evelyn Nesbit and a variety of Anns from stories Montgomery had read, which she gradually distilled into her own unique Anne.

The book examines the years from 1903 to 1908: the time when Anne came into being, and the time Montgomery made some of the most important decisions of her life. The story is presented in three sections.

Questions for Discussion

  1. How does Looking for Anne challenge the conventional wisdom about a beloved children’s classic?
  2. To what extent were Maud’s mother's early death and her distanced relationship with her father responsible for the trajectory of her writing?
  3. Why did the bosom friends play such a central role in Anne of Green Gables? How do they affect us today?
  4. Discuss L. M. Montgomery’s propensity for seeking a better reality in writing fiction. Was this impulse escapist or empowering?
  5. “But if you call me Anne please call me Anne spelled with an e,” Anne famously says in the novel. Discuss the irony of these lines.
  6. Which imaginative influences from the glossy metropolitan magazines do you find most fascinating? Why?
  7. Anne Shirley is a nostalgic character and yet she also possesses profoundly modern sensibilities. Discuss.
  8. In the novel, Anne says to her friend Diana, “There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person.” Discuss.
  9. How does Lucy Maud Montgomery construct herself from shy Cavendish scribbler to celebrity author? What elements of her personality enable this public role?
  10. What does the rejection of Anne of Green Gables and her subsequent engagement to Ewan Macdonald suggest about their relationship?
  11. What aspects of Looking for Anne did you find most surprising or noteworthy? Why?
  12. How do the discoveries of Looking for Anne affect Montgomery’s legacy as an author of national significance? Discuss.