Anne of the Island recap

Anne leaves Avonlea at eighteen for four years at Redmond College in Kingsport, where she makes friends with the frivolous, clever Philippa Gordon and eventually keeps house with her college friends at Patty's Place under the chaperonage of Aunt Jamesina. Childhood ends around her: Diana becomes engaged to Fred Wright, Anne refuses two absurd proposals and one serious one when Gilbert Blythe asks her to marry him, and her old schoolfellow Ruby Gillis dies of consumption. Estranged from Gilbert, Anne is courted by the handsome, poetic Royal Gardner and drifts into accepting his attentions, only to refuse him when he proposes, realizing that she wanted the romance rather than the man. She takes her degree, sees Philippa married to a poor divinity student, and returns to Avonlea. There Gilbert nearly dies of typhoid fever, and in the fear of losing him Anne discovers that she has loved him for years. He recovers, asks her again, and this time she accepts, on the understanding that they will wait three years for his medical course to end.

Previously: Anne Shirley came to Green Gables in Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, as an eleven-year-old orphan sent by mistake to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had asked for a boy. She stayed, grew up there, and made a bosom friend of Diana Barry and a long-running rival of the clever Gilbert Blythe. She won a place at Queen's Academy and a scholarship to Redmond College, but gave the scholarship up when Matthew died and Marilla's eyes began to fail, and taught the Avonlea school for two years instead, keeping house with Marilla. In that time Marilla took in the orphan twins Davy and Dora Keith, Anne helped an old quarrel between Miss Lavendar Lewis and Stephen Irving to a wedding, and her quarrel with Gilbert turned into friendship. When Mrs. Rachel Lynde was widowed she came to Green Gables to keep house, which set Anne free at last to take the college course she had put aside.

Anne is nearly nineteen, and change is coming to Avonlea. Diana becomes engaged to Fred Wright, which Anne struggles to reconcile with the romantic future she had imagined for her friend, and Anne herself prepares to leave for Redmond College in Kingsport, on the mainland. Marilla and Mrs. Lynde see her off; Gilbert Blythe, Charlie Sloane, and Priscilla Grant travel to Redmond too. Anne's first days at college are miserable with homesickness and the loneliness of being one unknown freshman among many. Her spirits recover when she is befriended by Philippa Gordon, a pretty, wealthy, and hopelessly indecisive girl from Bolingbroke who collects admirers as other people collect ribbons and who takes to Anne at once. Anne and Priscilla find rooms on St. John Street, explore the old graveyard and the park, and letters from home, chiefly Davy's, keep Avonlea close.

Anne finishes her freshman year and goes home to Avonlea for the summer, where Green Gables is unchanged and the twins are older but not much improved. She receives the first of a series of proposals: Jane Andrews's brother Billy sends Jane to ask on his behalf, and Anne refuses, astonished; Charlie Sloane, in due course, is refused as well. Back at Redmond the following autumn, Anne, Priscilla, Stella Maynard, and Philippa take a small house near the park called Patty's Place, complete with two china dogs on the mantel, rented from its elderly owners who are travelling abroad. Stella's aunt, a cheerful little widow known as Aunt Jamesina, comes to keep house for them, bringing her cats and her tolerant wisdom. The four girls settle into a household of their own, and their college years become a comfortable, busy round of study, visitors, and long evenings by the fire.

Anne, who has been writing stories, is persuaded to let Diana enter one of them in a competition; Diana submits it to a baking-powder company's contest without telling Anne how far she has altered it, and the story wins and is published with the product worked into the plot. Anne is mortified and gives up writing for a time. That summer at home brings a heavier grief. Ruby Gillis, Anne's old schoolfellow, is dying of consumption, though the village keeps up the pretence that she is merely delicate. Anne visits her and finds that Ruby, who has cared for nothing but parties and admirers, is terrified of dying and clings to the life she knows. In their last conversations Ruby speaks honestly for the first time in her life. She dies before the summer is out, and Anne, who has never been close to death since Matthew, returns to Redmond changed by it.

The friendship between Anne and Gilbert comes to a crisis. Gilbert tells Anne that he has loved her since their school days and asks her to marry him. Anne, who has always imagined that love would announce itself with a rush of feeling she has never had for Gilbert, refuses him, and the refusal wounds him deeply. Their easy companionship ends; Gilbert keeps away from her, and Anne is left unhappy without understanding why, since she is certain she was right. She goes home to Avonlea for the summer, where Green Gables, Marilla, the twins, and the old walks are a comfort, and where Paul Irving comes back on a visit. Philippa's letters keep her amused. Anne tells herself that she and Gilbert will be friends again in time, and the year turns without their being anything of the kind.

In Kingsport, Philippa astonishes everyone, herself included, by falling in love with Jonas Blake, a poor, plain divinity student in charge of a mission church, and losing interest in her wealthy suitors. Anne, sheltering from a rainstorm, meets Royal Gardner, a dark, handsome young man of a rich Kingsport family who talks like the hero of her girlhood dreams. He courts her steadily, and Anne, flattered and half persuaded, lets the courtship run on while telling herself that this must be what she has waited for. At Redmond she sees Gilbert frequently in the company of Christine Stuart and concludes that he has transferred his affections; the old ease between them does not come back. In Avonlea, Diana marries Fred Wright with Anne as bridesmaid, and Anne watches her friend settle into a plain, contented happiness quite unlike anything in her own imaginings.

Anne spends a summer boarding at Valley Road while teaching there, and takes a hand in the affairs of her landlady, who has been courted for twenty years by a man too much under his mother's thumb to speak; when he finally does, Anne has had something to do with it. Back at Redmond for her final year, she is treated by everyone, including herself, as good as engaged to Royal Gardner, and his formidable mother and sisters call on her and inspect her thoroughly. Philippa is settled in her own mind about Jonas, whatever her family may say. The household at Patty's Place goes on through its last winter, with Aunt Jamesina presiding and the cats before the fire, and Anne is aware that a whole way of life is ending. She has still not admitted to herself what she felt when she refused Gilbert Blythe.

Roy Gardner makes his proposal in the setting he has carefully chosen, and Anne hears herself refuse him and knows at once that she is right: she has been in love with a picture of a lover, not with the man. Roy is bitterly offended, and Anne is left feeling foolish. She and Gilbert both take their degrees; Patty's Place is given back to its owners, Aunt Jamesina goes home, and Philippa marries Jonas Blake and goes off entirely happy to his poor shore parish. Anne returns to Avonlea for good, hearing on all sides that Gilbert Blythe is expected to marry Christine Stuart. Then Gilbert falls ill with typhoid fever, and the village waits through a night in which the doctors expect him to die. Sitting alone, Anne understands that she has loved him for years and that her refusal was the great mistake of her life. Word comes in the morning that the crisis has passed. When he is well enough to walk out, the two meet in the woods above Avonlea; Gilbert explains that Christine was never more than a friend, engaged all along to another man, and asks Anne again. She accepts, and they agree to wait three years while he finishes his medical course.

Anne takes her degree at Redmond, refuses Royal Gardner when he finally proposes because she discovers she has only been in love with an idea of him, and comes home to Avonlea for good. Philippa Gordon marries Jonas Blake and goes with him to his poor shore parish in a fishing village, entirely happy. Patty's Place is given up and Aunt Jamesina goes home. In Avonlea, Anne finds Gilbert changed and distant and hears that he is expected to marry Christine Stuart. Then Gilbert falls dangerously ill with typhoid fever, and during the night when the crisis is expected to kill him Anne understands that she has loved him all along and that her refusal of him was the great mistake of her life. He recovers, and when he is strong enough the two meet in the woods above Avonlea. Gilbert learns that Christine was never anything but a friend engaged to another man, and he asks Anne again. She accepts. They agree to wait three years while he completes his medical training, and Anne takes a teaching post to fill the time. Diana is married to Fred Wright, Green Gables is unchanged, and Anne ends the book engaged and at home.