Written for all ages, it has been considered a classic children's novel since the midth century. Set in the late 19th century, the novel recounts the adventures of an year-old orphan girl Anne Shirley sent by mistake to two middle-aged siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had originally intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Avonlea in Prince Edward Island , Canada.
The novel recounts how Anne makes her way through life with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town. Since its publication, Anne of Green Gables has been translated into at least 36 languages and has sold more than 50 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books worldwide to date in any language, [ 5 ] and is taught to students around the world.
In , an authorized prequel , Before Green Gables [ 7 ] by Budge Wilson [ 8 ] was published on the occasion of the th anniversary of the series. The book has been adapted as films, television films , and animated and live-action television series. Musicals and plays have also been created, with productions annually in Canada, Europe and Japan.
In writing the novel, Montgomery was inspired by notes she had made as a young girl about two siblings who were mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of the boy they had requested, yet decided to keep her. She drew upon her childhood experiences in rural Prince Edward Island , Canada. Montgomery used a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit , which she had clipped from New York's Metropolitan Magazine and put on the wall of her bedroom as the model for the face of Anne Shirley and a reminder of her "youthful idealism and spirituality.
Montgomery was inspired by the "formula Ann" orphan stories called such because they followed such a predictable formula that were popular at the time, but distinguished her character by spelling her name with an extra "e". She said she wrote the novel in the twilight of the day while sitting at her window and overlooking the fields of Cavendish.
