‘Having adventures comes natural to some people,’ said Anne serenely. ‘You just have a gift for them or you haven’t.’ Five years ago, a skinny, unwanted orphan arrived at Avonlea without a friend in the world; now it would be impossible to imagine Green Gables without Anne. Her high spirits and warm heart have won her a family and friends who love her. But when Anne starts a new j…
‘All life lessons are not learned at college. Life teaches them everywhere.’ At eighteen years old, Anne is leaving Green Gables for university – her life’s dream. But her feeling are bittersweet: although excited to see the world, she is heartbroken to leave her home and everyone she loves. Before long she has made new friends – including handsome Roy Gardner, who seems to have…
‘Gilbert, I’m afraid I’m scandalously in love with you.’ Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe are at last engage, but still they are apart: for three years Gilbert will be away at medical school, while Anne has a new job as principal of Summerside High School. Absence couldn’t make their hearts any fonder, though, and they share all their love and news in letters. At Summerside, Anne…
‘They belonged to each other; and, no matter what life might hold for them, it could never alter that. Their happiness was in each other’s keeping and both were unafraid.’ There has never been a wedding at Green Gables – that is, until now. In the old orchard on a perfect sunny day, surrounded by their dearest friends, Anne Shirley and Gilbert Bythe are married last. The couple be…
‘It’s been lovely to be Anne of Green Gables again, but it’s a hundred times lovelier to come back and be Anne of Ingleside.’ There’s never a dull moment at Ingleside, Anne’s lively home: Anne is now the mother of five children – with a sixth baby on the way. But even with endless demands on her time, she couldn’t be happier and there’s nowhere in the world she’d rather b…
‘there was a little unfailing spring, always icy cold and crystal pure, in a certain birch-screened hollow of Rainbow Valley. Not a great many people knew of its existence. The manse and Ingleside children knew, of course …’ When the new minister, Reverend John Meredith, arrives at the manse, the village is scandalised by his children’s behaviour. He is the best preacher they’ve ev…
Young orphan Philip Pirrip – known lovingly as Pip – lives with his borderline abusive elder sister, who also doubles as a flawed mother figure. Narrated in the first person by Pip, Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is a story of ambition and opportunities. Despite being relegated by birth to lowly circumtances, Pip dream big. One day, luck seems to turn in his favour, and Pip’s prosp…
‘It was a town of machinery and tall chimney… inhabited by people equally like one another, who all went in and out at the same hours… to do the same work, and to whom everyday was the same as yesterday and tomorrow…’ Charles Dickens’s Hard Times is a satirical portrayal of the deleterious effect of the Industrial Revolution and Capitalism. Following the lives of its unforgett…
‘But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!’ The character of Ebenezer Scrooge has become an archetype for the merciless miser. He was a man quite content with utter disregard for the welfare of those around him. A smile, a warm greeting or a kind word were all incomprehensible to old Scrooge. …