Chronicles of Avonlea
Chronicles of Avonlea
Chronicles of Avonlea is a collection of short stories by Canadian author L. M. Montgomery, connected to the Anne of Green Gables series. It centers on the fictional Canadian village of Avonlea and was first published in 1912. The book runs about 236 pages.
Although it is often marketed as part of the Anne Shirley books, Anne herself is not the main focus. She stars in only one story, "The Hurrying of Ludovic," and has a small role in another, "The Courting of Prissy Strong." In five other stories she is only mentioned briefly. Other familiar characters from the Anne books, like Marilla Cuthbert and Mrs. Rachel Lynde, appear in passing, and Diana Barry and the Reverend Mr. Allan and his wife also make brief appearances.
The Penhallow family from "The Winning of Lucinda" are connected later to Anne of the Island and to Montgomery's later novel A Tangled Web, but most of the stories in Chronicles of Avonlea feature Avonlea residents who are not in the Anne novels. Many stories were first published in magazines before the Anne books existed. After the huge success of Anne of Green Gables (1908) and its sequel (1909), Montgomery revised several old stories to fit Avonlea and to include references to Anne, marketing them as a new companion book.
The book is dedicated to the memory of Mrs. William A. Houston. In 1920 Montgomery released a sequel, Further Chronicles of Avonlea, which also includes Avonlea stories and one Anne story; it was published without her permission, leading to a legal dispute. Some stories from Chronicles were later used as the basis for the TV series Road to Avonlea. Montgomery continued writing Anne stories in later novels, arranged in order as Anne grows older.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 13:25 (CET).