The Real Island That Inspired 'Anne of Green Gables'

Written by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables is the heartwarming coming-of-age tale of a young orphan girl, the eponymous Anne Shirley, and the life she builds for herself with her new adoptive parents, the elderly siblings Marilla and Matthew Shirley, in the fictional town of Avonlea in eastern Canada. 

Although Montgomery initially struggled to find a publisher for her work, her story became an instant bestseller on its release back in 1908 and has since gone on to become one of the most popular children’s books of all time. Adapted several times for film, theatre, television, and even animation, the book has now sold over 50 million copies in three dozen languages, while Montgomery could even count the great Mark Twain among her many admirers: he once described Anne as “the most lovable child in fiction” since Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. 

Childhood Roots Behind Anne’s World

At least part of Anne’s enduring popularity lies in Montgomery’s enormously realistic portrayal of a young girls’ childhood, and both the life and people around whom Anne grows up. Much of that was based on Montgomery’s own childhood experiences, as, just like Anne, Montgomery was raised by an aged couple having endured a difficult start in life. Her mother had died of tuberculosis when she was barely a year-and-a-half old, after which her grief-stricken father became increasingly distant and consequently ever more reliant on Montgomery’s grandparents, who eventually raised their granddaughter themselves after her father moved away and remarried. 

But Montgomery also drew heavily on the places that she had called home in her childhood—and ultimately came to immortalize in Anne of Green Gables her real-life home on Canada’s Prince Edward Island. 

A Landscape That Cultivated a Literary Classic

Canada’s smallest province, at just 2,185 sq miles, Prince Edward Island is located off the country’s far southeast coast in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although it is also Canada’s most densely populated province, with a population of just over 185,000, that figure is still remarkably low and was even lower when Montgomery was writing in the early 1900s. Prince Edward Island is comparable in area to Delaware, yet even today has barely one-fifth of its inhabitants. As a result, outside of Charlotte, the island’s capital, and a handful of other larger towns, life on Prince Edward Island has retained a slow pace and distinct rural charm that inspired much of Montgomery’s writing. 

Montgomery was born in the tiny community of Clifton (now New London) on the island’s north coast in 1874. Having moved in with her grandparents, however, she spent much of her childhood in the similarly small village of Cavendish, around 10 miles further east. The open fields, beaches, coastline, and forests around where she grew up are all brought vividly to life in her writing—as is the real-life Green Gables cottage, located not far from what are now the ruins of Montgomery’s childhood home. Understandably, the site remains a popular tourist destination for fans of Anne of Green Gables who travel to Prince Edward Island each year from all around the world.

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