Plot

When Anne Shirley arrives at the Cuthbert's Farm on Prince Edward Island, she is a child with wild imagination, desperate to be loved. We follow Anne's enchanting life, from her struggles as an adolescent to her triumphs as a young woman.

At the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley. Anne's a dreamer with an unusual point of view, far removed from Marilla's pragmatic ways, and it's only on trial that Marilla agrees to keep Anne...if Anne can keep out of trouble, only Anne has a positive genius for it. As Anne falls into a series of scrapes (and off a roof), makes a bosom friend, searches (and finds) several kindred spirits, Matthew and Marilla discover that their lives have become a great deal richer, now that Anne is at Green Gables.—Kathy Li

In the early 1900s, elderly Matthew Cuthbert and his spinster sister Marilla Cuthbert live on a farmstead in Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, the house on the property known as Green Gables. To assist with the farm work, they decide to adopt an orphan boy. Through an error, they instead receive a twelve year old orphan girl named Anne Shirley. Anne is outspoken, opinionated and stubborn, but she is also kind, good-hearted and bright. She is extremely self conscious of her looks, especially the fact of her freckles and her red hair. She has a vivid imagination tending toward fantasized romance and tragedy, this a mechanism to escape the harsh life she's endured thus far. Upon meeting Anne, Matthew does not have the heart to send her back. Although the Cuthberts have no practical use for a girl, Matthew talks a begrudging Marilla into keeping Anne, if only on a trial basis. In addition to Marilla, Anne has to win over many of the people of Avonlea, who see an orphan as being nothing but trouble. But in Avonlea, Anne also has many kindred spirits as she calls her dearest friends, including Matthew, classmate Diana Barry, Diana's Aunt Josephine and school teacher Muriel Stacey. Another colleague with whom she has a rocky beginning is classmate Gilbert Blythe, although Gilbert sees Anne in a different light. Through trials and tribulations, Anne does win over those important to her, including Marilla, who ultimately cannot even imagine what life would have been like without Anne. As Anne matures into young womanhood into her late teens, she demonstrates her many talents at Green Gables, at public school and at Queen's College in Charlottetown. When tragedy strikes the Cuthbert family, Gilbert shows Anne how true a kindred spirit he really is.—Huggo