Anne of Windy Poplars characters

Appears from the start

Newly graduated from Redmond and engaged to Gilbert Blythe, she has come to the harbour town of Summerside as principal of the high school for the three years he will spend at medical school. She boards at Windy Poplars, an old house in Spook's Lane, and writes Gilbert long letters that carry most of the story. Warm, curious, and incurably interested in other people's affairs, she makes friends easily everywhere except in the one quarter where it matters most.

Appears from the start

Anne's fiance, away at medical school on the mainland for the three years of her Summerside appointment. He appears almost entirely as the recipient of her letters, and the engagement is a private happiness she keeps largely to herself.

Appears from the start

The general help at Windy Poplars, a short, stout woman of decided views who considers herself the real head of the household while insisting she is only the servant. She conducts loud arguments with the cat, guards the widows' comfort fiercely, and takes Anne into her confidence within a week.

Appears from the start

One of the two elderly widows who keep Windy Poplars, the elder and the sterner, sensible and reserved, who does not care for cats and takes a while to unbend to a young lodger.

Appears from the start

The younger of the two widows at Windy Poplars, softer than her sister and easily hurt, given to weeping over slights and to small conspiracies with Anne behind Aunt Kate's back.

First appears in chapter 3

A solemn, fair-haired little girl of about eight who lives in the great house next door with her grandmother and an unsmiling housekeeper, and who is allowed almost nothing. She gets her milk from Windy Poplars and befriends Anne over the garden gate. She has invented a place called Tomorrow, in which everything she wants will happen, including the arrival of the father she has never known, and she gives herself a different name for every mood.

First appears in chapter 3

Elizabeth's grandmother, a rigid, formal old woman who took the child in after her mother's death, keeps her strictly, and permits no friendships or indulgences in the house she rules.

First appears in chapter 2

The vice-principal of Summerside High School, a dark, angular young woman with a harsh voice and no friends, who had expected the principalship herself and makes no attempt to hide her resentment. She rejects every civility Anne offers and is disliked throughout the town.

First appears in chapter 2

A clever, pretty, insolent pupil in Anne's school and a member of the town's dominant family, who leads the classroom campaign against the new principal on the clan's behalf.

First appears in chapter 4

Two elderly sisters who are the acknowledged heads of the Pringle clan, which is related to half of Summerside. Courteous in manner and implacable in fact, they have decided that Anne shall not keep her post, and the whole connection follows their lead.

First appears in chapter 18

A middle-aged Summerside woman kept in near-servitude by a demanding invalid mother, who has not been allowed an afternoon to herself in years and would like to attend an old friend's silver wedding.

First appears in chapter 18

A pretty, pliable Summerside girl engaged to Jarvis Morrow, whose father forbids the match for reasons nobody can discover, and who has not the resolution to settle the matter either way.

First appears in chapter 18

A Summerside youth working his way through school by selling photographs and doing odd jobs, cheerful about his poverty, who becomes Anne's companion on country rambles.

First appears in chapter 31

One of the Nelson sisters, dark and proud and no longer young, who has quarrelled with the man she loves and would rather be thought indifferent than admit she is unhappy.

First appears in chapter 31

The last of a once-great Summerside family, living alone in the large, gloomy Tomgallon house, who takes a sombre pride in the many tragedies of her relations and recites them to guests over dinner.