Anne's House of Dreams recap

Anne Shirley marries Gilbert Blythe at Green Gables and goes to keep house in a small cottage on Four Winds Harbour, where Gilbert has taken over a country practice. Her neighbours are the old lighthouse keeper Captain Jim, the outspoken Miss Cornelia Bryant, and Leslie Moore, a beautiful young woman married at sixteen to a man who came home from sea with his wits gone and who has nursed him ever since. Anne wins Leslie's friendship slowly, and their first real closeness comes after Anne's baby daughter is born and dies within a day. A writer named Owen Ford comes to board with the Moores, takes down Captain Jim's life story for a book, and falls in love with Leslie, which seems hopeless. Gilbert then argues that Leslie's husband might be cured by surgery. The operation reveals that the man is not Dick Moore at all but his cousin; the real Dick died years before, and Leslie is free. Leslie and Owen marry, Anne's son Jem is born, Captain Jim dies the night he reads his finished book, and the Blythes move to a larger house at Glen St. Mary.

Previously: Anne Shirley was sent as an orphan child to Green Gables in Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island, and grew up there with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. She taught the village school, took her degree at Redmond College, and after refusing Gilbert Blythe once became engaged to him when he nearly died of typhoid fever. She then spent three years as principal of Summerside High School while Gilbert studied medicine, boarding at Windy Poplars and gradually winning over a hostile town. Her old friend Diana is married to Fred Wright; Marilla keeps Green Gables with Mrs. Rachel Lynde and the twins Davy and Dora. Gilbert has now qualified as a doctor. This book opens with their wedding, and moves the story away from Avonlea to Four Winds Harbour, where the young couple begin married life.

Anne is married to Gilbert Blythe in the orchard at Green Gables, the first bride the old house has sent out, with Diana, Marilla, Mrs. Lynde, and the twins about her and a household of old friends looking on. The couple travel to Four Winds Harbour, sixty miles away, where Gilbert is taking over the country practice of the elderly Doctor Dave. Their home is a small white house on the shore below the Glen, sheltered by poplars, with a brook and a garden planted by a bride of long ago. Anne learns its history: it was built by a young schoolmaster for the girl he brought home from Scotland, and it has held a series of happy marriages ever since. She calls it her house of dreams, arranges her own things in it, and looks out at the harbour, the sand bar, and the lighthouse on the point with the feeling that her real life has just begun.

Anne and Gilbert make the acquaintance of their neighbours. Captain Jim, the keeper of the Four Winds light, is an old sailor with a lifetime of stories and no words to write them down; he adopts the young couple, and his lighthouse becomes their favourite evening walk. Miss Cornelia Bryant calls and stays to explain the harbour, its history, its Methodists, and the general uselessness of men, while sewing for somebody else's baby. Anne is haunted by the beautiful young woman she has glimpsed driving geese along the shore, Leslie Moore of the grey house up the harbour, who rebuffs every friendly approach. Miss Cornelia tells her the story: Leslie's brother was killed as a child, her father took his own life, and at sixteen she married a man she disliked to save her mother's home. He went to sea, and was brought back from Cuba after a fever and a blow to the head with his mind gone. She has nursed him ever since.

Leslie comes down to the little house at last, and the friendship Anne wanted begins, though it is uneven; Leslie is warm one week and shut away the next, and Anne does not always understand why. A first winter at Four Winds passes with storms, firelight, Christmas at the Glen, and New Year's Eve at the lighthouse, where Captain Jim tells his stories and Miss Cornelia gives her opinions. Anne hears more of the harbour's people and their histories, including a suggestion that Captain Jim once loved a girl who was lost at sea. Spring comes to the shore, and Anne is quietly happy, with the garden coming out and the harbour blue again. She is expecting her first child, and the little house is made ready for it.

Anne's baby, a daughter they name Joyce, is born and lives only a day. Anne's grief is the first real sorrow of her life, and it changes the house of dreams for her. It is Leslie Moore who comes to her, and out of that shared trouble the last barrier between the two women goes down; from then on they are close friends without reserve. Anne slowly recovers, and Captain Jim, who has known his own losses, tells her the story of the girl he waited for who never came back from the sea. That summer a visitor arrives at Four Winds: Owen Ford, a Toronto journalist, who turns out to be the grandson of the schoolmaster and the bride for whom Anne's little house was built. He boards with the Moores. Hearing Captain Jim's stories, Anne sees that they are a book waiting to be written, and Owen agrees to write it from the old man's own life-book of notes.

Owen Ford works on Captain Jim's life-book through the summer, and the harbour, the lighthouse, and the little house are full of company and talk. Owen and Leslie fall in love. Owen tells Anne of it before he goes away, and Leslie, who cannot be free while her husband lives, is left wretched, having found and lost the one chance of happiness she thought she had given up. Gilbert then raises a possibility that Anne would rather not hear: he believes that the injury to Dick Moore's head might be relieved by surgery, and that a specialist could restore him. Anne argues fiercely against telling Leslie, since a cured husband would only fasten the marriage on her more surely; Gilbert answers that a doctor cannot suppress a chance of cure to suit anybody's happiness. Leslie is told and, after a struggle, decides to go through with it. The operation reveals that the man is not Dick Moore at all, but his cousin George, who resembled him. The real Dick died of fever in Cuba years ago, and Leslie has never been a wife at all.

George Moore, restored to himself and with no memory of the lost years, is sent back to his own people. Leslie is free at last, but she believes Owen Ford gone for good and will not write to him, and the autumn is a wretched one for her. Owen returns to Four Winds of his own accord, learns the truth, and he and Leslie become engaged. Anne's second child, a son, is born safely at the little house and named James Matthew for Captain Jim and for Matthew Cuthbert; Susan Baker comes from the Glen to help with the house and takes charge of the family's affairs as though she had been born to them. Captain Jim, who has waited to see the boy, is content. The life-book of his stories, written up by Owen, is going through the press, and the old man speaks of it as the one thing he still wants to see finished.

The life-book is published under Owen's name with Captain Jim's stories at its heart, and the old man is deeply happy with it. He reads his copy through on a quiet evening at the lighthouse and is found next morning dead in his chair, with his hand on the book and the First Mate beside him; the harbour buries him as a man everyone loved. Miss Cornelia Bryant then astonishes the district by announcing that she is to marry Marshall Elliott, who cuts his hair and shaves off the beard he grew for a political vow, and the wedding duly takes place. Leslie Moore and Owen Ford are married and take the little house on the shore for their own, which spares Anne the pain of leaving it to strangers. Gilbert's practice at Glen St. Mary has outgrown the cottage, and he has bought a big old house up at the Glen called Ingleside. Anne says goodbye to her house of dreams, grieving for it and for Captain Jim, and moves up to the Glen with Gilbert, little Jem, and Susan Baker.

The truth about Leslie Moore's husband frees her: the man she nursed for years was Dick Moore's cousin George, and the real Dick died abroad long ago, so her marriage never existed. Owen Ford returns to Four Winds and the two become engaged. Anne and Gilbert's son, James Matthew, is born safely and thrives, with Susan Baker installed to help in the house. Captain Jim's life-book, written up by Owen from the old man's stories, is published; Captain Jim reads his copy through on a quiet evening at the light and is found dead in his chair, having gone out as easily as a ship crossing the bar, with the First Mate beside him. Miss Cornelia Bryant, after a lifetime of denouncing men, marries Marshall Elliott, who shaves at last. Leslie and Owen marry and take the little house on the shore as their own summer home, so it stays in loving hands. Gilbert's practice has grown too large for the cottage, and he and Anne move up to a big house at Glen St. Mary called Ingleside, taking Susan and the baby with them. Anne leaves her house of dreams with real grief and with the certainty that the happiness it held goes with her.