Reading order
Anne of Green Gables reading order
- Anne of Green Gables1908
- Anne of Avonlea1909
- Anne of the Island1915
- Anne of Windy Poplars1936
- Anne's House of Dreams1917
- Anne of Ingleside1939
- Rainbow Valley1919
- Rilla of Ingleside1921
- The Blythes Are Quoted2009
1
2
3
4
5
6
7- 9 volumes
- Volumes
- 1908–2009
- Published
- about 45 h
- Reading time
- Completed
- Status
- Children’s books#2
- Genre
Quick answer
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Publication order
9 volumes1908–2009Completed
- Two orders exist and they disagree, which is why this series confuses people.
- The books are numbered one to eight on the spine, in the order Anne lives them: Green Gables, Avonlea, the Island, Windy Poplars, House of Dreams, Ingleside, Rainbow Valley, Rilla.
- Montgomery did not write them that way — she finished Rainbow Valley and Rilla in 1919 and 1921, then went back twenty years later and filled the gaps with Windy Poplars and Anne of Ingleside.
- Read by the numbers; it is the order the story wants.
- Two things this page cannot show you: Anne of the Island and Anne's House of Dreams are numbers three and five, and our sources do not carry them.
- Before Green Gables is not Montgomery's at all — Budge Wilson wrote it in 2008 as an authorised prequel about Anne before the orphanage.
A plan for the whole series
9 volumes, 2,350 pages, about 45 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 8 weeks.
Share of volume 1’s readers who reach the last volume. Chance of reaching the last volume: low
- From volume 2 on, the number of ratings falls most before volume 4, “Anne of Windy Poplars” (by 44%). Plan your break after volume 3, before the series plans it for you.
- Readers scored volume 2, “Anne of Avonlea”, below its predecessor (8.1 after 8.4). If you slow down there, that is on the book, not on you.
Stages
3 stages, with 2 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around January 13, 2027, 19 days later than in one go.
- Stage 115 h19 daysby November 17, 2026
- BreakMaus · Art Spiegelman · 295 pp. · score 9.0
- Stage 219 habout 4 weeksby December 22, 2026
- BreakBorn a Crime · Trevor Noah · 304 pp. · score 8.9
- Stage 310 h13 daysby January 13, 2027
- 8. Rilla of Ingleside
- 9. The Blythes Are Quoted
- The end of the series
We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.
≈ next to a page count: a volume with no page count in our data is counted at this series’s average.
Does the series hold up
Shape of the series: best at the start. Readers scored the first volumes (8.4) above the last ones (8.0).
Best volume: Anne of Green Gables (8.4, 1,172 ratings). Weakest: Anne of Windy Poplars (7.8). From volume 2 on, the biggest drop in the number of ratings is between volume 3 and 4: 44%. The series is complete; you can read it start to finish with no waiting. The last volume (8.0) scores close to the series average or above it.
How this plan is calculated
The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →
Every volume in order
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026
Anne of Green Gables books ranked, best to worst
- 1.Anne of Green GablesBook 1 · 19088.4
- 2.Anne of AvonleaBook 2 · 19098.1
- 3.Anne of the IslandBook 3 · 19158.0
- 3.Anne's House of DreamsBook 5 · 19178.0
- 5.Anne of Windy PoplarsBook 4 · 19367.8
Frequently asked questions
Which Anne of Green Gables book is the best?
By reader score, Anne of Green Gables (8.4/10). The lowest-rated is Anne of Windy Poplars (7.8/10).
Which Anne of Green Gables book is the longest?
“Anne of Ingleside” is the longest at 312 pages; the shortest is “Anne of the Island” with 220 pages.