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 Anne of Windy Poplars, 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 had to be 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
Reviews of Anne of Windy Poplars / Anne of Windy Willows (15)
Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 25 July 1936, Society Section, 5 (Ida Johnson, “Anne Appears in New Story”).
Hartford (CT) Courant, 9 August 1936, D6.
New York Herald Tribune Books, 9 August 1936, Section 7, 8 (Lisle Bell). The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 335 (as “[Tribulations and Triumphs]”).
Lewiston (ME) Daily Sun, 14 August 1936, 4 (R.W.L.).
Idaho Evening Times (Twin Falls), 19 August 1936, 7.
Canton (OH) Repository, 12 August 1936, 4.
Denton (TX) Record-Chronicle, 15 August 1936, 2 (John Selby, “Scanning New Books”).
Gazette (Montreal), “Anne-est Anne.” 22 August 1936, 11. The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 335–36.
Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), 11 September 1936, 6 (“An Old Favourite Again”). The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 336.
Toronto Daily Star, 12 September 1936, 7 (“Real Canadian Humor”). The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 336–37.
Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, 12 September 1936, 6.
Winnipeg Free Press, 10 October 1936, 18. The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 337 (as “[Humorous and Sentimental Adventures]”).
Women’s Magazine (UK), November 1936. Scrapbook of Reviews, loose pages. The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 337 (as “[A Splendid Story]”).
University of Toronto Quarterly 6, no. 3 (April 1937): 347–68 (J.R. MacGillivray). The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 338 (excerpted as “[More Good Deeds Than a Boy Scout]”).
The Family Herald and Weekly Star (Montreal), 5 May 1937, 38 (Roderick Kennedy, “More about ‘Anne’”). The L.M. Montgomery Reader, 3: 338–39.
Published on 17 July 2012; last updated on 29 March 2024. Please contact the site owner with additions, corrections, questions, and suggestions.