Looking for Anne of Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery and Her Timeless Heroine is a book by Irene Gammel that was published in July 2025 by Sutherland House Publishing. The book explores L.M. Montgomery's sources of inspiration when she created Anne Shirley. It also examines Montgomery's secrecy during her life and her way of curating information to create her public persona.
The 324-page book is a newly expanded edition of Gammel's research, which was originally published in 2008 for the Anne of Green Gables centenery under the following titles: Looking for Anne: How Lucy Maud Montgomery Dreamed Up a Literary Classic and Looking for Anne of Green Gables: The Story of L.M. Montgomery and Her Literary Classic. The new paperback edition includes additional chapters and research.
In a 2008 interview, Irene Gammel described her work, saying: "Looking for Anne is a dual biography because I wanted to show that Maud projected aspects of herself into the novel—her own ambition, her determination, her loneliness, and her hunger for love and family life. I also wanted to show that the novel was a wish fulfilment dream. She dreamed up the things she did not have in her own life. Ultimately, we also see a woman who was successful as a writer because she combined the role of romantic dreamer with that of pragmatic business woman, launching herself from small-town Cavendish onto the world stage."
In a 2025 interview with The Eyeopener, Irene Gammel noted that the first edition of her book was more like a research assemblage, and "This time around I had the feeling I was telling a story."
Here is the description of the book from Sutherland House:
For over a century, Anne Shirley has captivated readers with her fiery red hair, boundless imagination, and plucky spirit.
First introduced as the protagonist of Anne of Green Gables in 1908, she quickly became one of fiction’s most iconic characters, with the novel selling over 50 million copies and translated into more than forty languages. Yet little is known about Anne’s origins. Her creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery, a farm girl from Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, was an intensely private person.
In Looking for Anne of Green Gables, Irene Gammel draws on her archival discoveries, and on the author’s private journals to reveal an emotional landscape of longing, loss, and a deep yearning for connection—themes that found their way into her famous novel. Blending biography and cultural history, Gammel traces the parallel journeys of Montgomery and her beloved heroine, showing how the author’s personal grief was transformed into the triumphs and joys of Anne Shirley. This dual biography of Montgomery and her timeless character explains how a literary classic was conceived and why it continues to enchant readers today.
ISBN-13: 9781998365715
Link:
Looking for Anne at Sutherland Books.
References:
Simpson, Molly. (October 28, 2025). TMU professor releases new edition of 2008 novel. The Eyeopener. Retrieved from: https://theeyeopener.com/2025/10/tmu-professor-releases-new-edition-of-2008-novel/
Author: Irene Gammel on Looking for Anne. (2008). The Anne of Green Gables Centenary. Retrieved from: https://www.torontomu.ca/mlc/anne/inside5.html
Image credits:
Book cover of Looking for Anne of Green Gables: L.M. Montgomery and Her Timeless Heroine.
Created December 4, 2025.
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