Anne of Green Gables

Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, brother and sister who live together at Green Gables, a farm in Avonlea on Prince Edward Island in Canada, decide to adopt a boy from an orphan asylum in Nova Scotia as a helper on their farm. Through a series of mishaps, the person who ends up under their roof is a precocious girl of eleven named Anne Shirley. Anne is bright and quick, eager to please and talkative, and extremely imaginative. She is not beautiful, but is interesting-looking, with a pale countenance dotted with freckles, and long braids of red hair. She would really like to be called Cordelia; but she insists that if you are to call her Anne, it must be spelt with an 'E', as that spelling is "so much more distinguished." Being a child of imagination, however, Anne takes much joy in life, and adapts quickly, thriving in the environment of Prince Edward Island. She is something of a chatterbox, which initially drives the prim, duty-driven Marilla to distraction, although shy Matthew falls for her immediately.