Anne's World: A New Century of Anne of Green Gables

Anne's World: A New Century of Anne of Green Gables was edited by Irene Gammel and Benjamin Lefebvre and published by the University of Toronto Press in June 2010. This 304-page book contains a collection of 11 essays, as well as an introduction and afterword, that consider the cultural influence of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables.

Here is the description of the volume from the University of Toronto Press:

The original essays in Anne's World offer fresh and timely approaches to issues of culture, identity, health, and globalization as they apply to Montgomery's famous character and to today's readers.

The recent 100 year anniversary of the first publication of L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables has inspired renewed interest in one of Canada's most beloved fictional icons. The international appeal of the red-haired orphan has not diminished over the past century, and the cultural meanings of her story continue to grow and change. The original essays in Anne's World offer fresh and timely approaches to issues of culture, identity, health, and globalization as they apply to Montgomery's famous character and to today's readers.

In conversation with each other and with the work of previous experts, the contributors to Anne's World discuss topics as diverse as Anne in fashion, the global industry surrounding Anne, how the novel can be used as a tool to counteract depression, and the possibility that Anne suffers from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Anne in translation and its adaptation for film and television are also considered. By establishing new ways to examine one of popular culture's most beloved characters, the essays of Anne's World demonstrate the timeless and ongoing appeal of L.M. Montgomery's writing.

Reviews

"This collection is really 'Anne for a New Century.' As Anne begins her journey into the next millennium, after her first 100 years, Gammel and Lefebvre have proven that there are startling new facets to uncover: her disabilities and her creator's depression; her modern fashions and her ruthless tourism; her long archival life in libraries and her postmodern digital presence. These new approaches reveal that Anne is as new today as ever."
— Holly Blackford, editor of 100 Years of Anne with an 'e': The Centennial Study of Anne of Green Gables

"The essays are paired and clustered for contrapuntal readings. But each stands on its own, providing twenty-first century readers of Anne of Green Gables - or indeed anyone interested in how classic texts might be read in the twenty-first century- with the opportunity to reflect and respond and renew their acquaintance with Anne and her world."
— Lesley D. Clement"

The book includes the following content and essays:

Introduction: Reconsidering Anne’s World by Irene Gammel

1. Seven Milestones: How Anne of Green Gables Became a Canadian Icon by Carole Gerson
2. ‘Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves’: Ambivalence towards Fashion in Anne of Green Gables by Alison Matthews David and Kimberly Wahl
3. ‘I’ll Never Be Angelically Good’: Feminist Narrative Ethics in Anne of Green Gables by Mary Jeanette Moran
4. ‘Too Heedless and Impulsive’: Re-reading Anne of Green Gables through a Clinical Approach by Helen Hoy
5. Reading to Heal: Anne of Green Gables as Bibliotherapy by Irene Gammel
6. Reading with Blitheness: Anne of Green Gables in Toronto Public Library’s Children’s Collections by Leslie McGrath
7. Learning with Anne: Early Childhood Education Looks at New Media for Young Girls by Jason Nolan
8. On the Road from Bright River: Shifting Social Space in Anne of Green Gables by Alexander Macleod
9. Anne in a ‘Globalized’ World: Nation, Nostalgia, and Postcolonial Perspectives of Home by Margaret Steffler
10. An Enchanting Girl: International Portraits of Anne’s Cultural Transfer by Irene Gammel with Andrew O’Malley, Huifeng Hu, and Ranbir K. Banwait
11. What’s in a Name? Towards a Theory of the Anne Brand by Benjamin Lefebvre

Afterword: Mediating Anne by Richard Cavell

Bibliography
Contributors
Index

ISBN-13: 9781442642027


Image credit:
Book cover of Anne's World: A New Century of Anne of Green Gables.

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Created July 12, 2010. Last updated October 9, 2025.
© worldofanneshirley.com

Christina Hendricks on Anne of Green Gables

I love finding mentions of Anne Shirley and L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables in interviews. Here’s my most recent find.

Christina Hendricks is an actress and model who stars as Joan Holloway on the television series Mad Men. The show is a period drama about a fictional advertising agency set in the 1960s. Christina Hendricks’s talent and striking beauty have made Joan Holloway a favorite on the show. In May of this year, in a poll of female readers, Hendricks was named Esquire’s sexist woman of the year.

This July, prior to the debut of the fourth season of Mad Men, Leslie Gornstein interviewed Christina Hendricks for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. It was a great interview, in which Gornstein asked Hendricks about Joan and Mad Men, her playing the accordion, her seeing Tom Waits perform and once dining with him and his wife, her three-episode role on Firefly, and her appearances in several music videos. She also spoke about finding red carpet gowns, dressing in retro costumes, and the Joan Holloway Barbie doll.

Best of all (for me, at least), Leslie Gornstein asked Christina Hendricks about how she began dying her hair red:

You’ve said you started dying your blond hair red at age 10. How exactly did you sell that choice to your folks?
They did it to me! I was obsessed with the Canadian novel Anne of Green Gables. I decided I was Anne of Green Gables. There was something that spoke to me about her, and I wanted to have her beautiful red hair. So my mother said, “Let’s just go to the drugstore and get one of those cover-the-gray rinses!” My hair was very blond at the time, but it went carrot red. And I was over the moon. I went to school the next day and felt like myself. And then I went back [to that color] over and over again. What a cool mom, right?

I think we can all agree that Christina Hendricks’s Mom was super cool for supporting her daughter’s obsession with Anne of Green Gables. And I adore Christina Hendricks’s red hair.

Reference:
Gornstein, Leslie. (2010, July) Past Perfect Christina Hendricks. Los Angeles Times Magazine. Originally retrieved from: https://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/07/christina-hendricks.html (presently, dead link). Archived at: https://web.archive.org/web/20101227122133/https://www.latimesmagazine.com/2010/07/christina-hendricks.html

Image credits:
Left: Photograph of Christina Hendricks by Joshua Jordan with styling by Hayley Atkin from "Past Perfect Christina Hendricks", Los Angeles Times Magazine, published July 2010.
Right: Screen capture of Megan Follows as Anne Shirley in Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel © Sullivan Entertainment.

Created July 6, 2010. Last updated September 4, 2023.
© worldofanneshirley.com