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Anne of Windy Poplars

Anne of Windy Poplars is L.M. Montgomery’s twenty-second book, first published in August 1936 by McClelland and Stewart (Toronto) and the Frederick A. Stokes Company (New York). It is the ninth of eleven books to feature Montgomery’s protagonist Anne Shirley Blythe, preceded by Anne of Green Gables (1908), Anne of Avonlea (1909), Chronicles of Avonlea (1912), Anne of the Island (1915), Anne’s House of Dreams (1917), Rainbow Valley (1919), Further Chronicles of Avonlea (1920), and Rilla of Ingleside (1921). Fifteen years after claiming publicly and privately that she was finished with Anne Shirley Blythe, she began the first of three books that fill in some of the gaps in the existing series: Anne of Windy Poplars, the first of these, was followed by Anne of Ingleside (1939) and The Blythes Are Quoted (2009). It was preceded by Mistress Pat: A Novel of Silver Bush (1935) and followed by Jane of Lantern Hill (1937).

In this story, Montgomery backtracks to the three-year gap between Anne of the Island and Anne’s House of Dreams, during which time Anne is the principal of Summerside High School. The novel is told partly in the form of letters to Gilbert at medical school, and because the overall continuity of Anne’s life has already been set, Montgomery is careful not to introduce elements that would be incompatible with the books already available. The novel formed part of the basis of Kevin Sullivan’s television miniseries Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel (1987) and was published with some minor variations as Anne of Windy Willows in the UK and Australia.

Dedication

To
the friends of Anne
everywhere

Contents

Part I: The First Year

Part II: The Second Year

Part III: The Third Year



Published on 17 July 2012; last updated on 18 February 2024. Please contact the site owner with additions, corrections, questions, and suggestions.