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This Anne of Green Gables trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers the 1908 novel, its author and everything that grew out of it. The book questions run from the orphanage mix-up and the boy the Cuthberts wanted, through Diana and the currant wine, the slate broken over Gilbert's head, the green hair, the Avery Scholarship and Matthew's death, to the choice Anne makes at the end. There are questions on L. M. Montgomery herself: the magazine photo she used for Anne's face, the window she wrote at in Cavendish, the OBE, and the sequel written from a woman's view of the First World War. The adaptations get their due: the lost 1919 silent film that infuriated Montgomery, the actress who legally renamed herself Anne Shirley, Megan Follows and Colleen Dewhurst in 1985, the Charlottetown musical that has run since 1965, the anime that made Anne an icon in Japan, and Anne with an E on Netflix. There's tourism trivia too, from licence plates to the replica farmhouse in Hokkaido. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia pages for the novel, its author and its adaptations, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was Anne of Green Gables first published?
1908
L.C. Page & Co. of Boston brought it out on 13 June, and it sold more than 19,000 copies in its first five months.
Q 02Anne is sent by mistake to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, who had asked the orphanage for what?
A boy to help on the farm
The message was garbled as it passed through Mrs. Spencer's brother and niece, and a girl of 10 or 11 turned up instead.
Q 03Green Gables stands in the fictional town of Avonlea, in which Canadian province?
Prince Edward Island
Avonlea is based on Cavendish, where Montgomery grew up; the province once put Anne's face on its licence plates.
Q 04Anne insists that her name always be spelled how?
With an 'e' on the end
Orphan-girl 'formula stories' with heroines called Ann were common in 1908, and Montgomery used the extra letter to set hers apart.
Q 05Which physical feature does Anne despise most about herself?
Her red hair
She hates the freckles too, but rather likes her nose; her attempt to dye the hair black turns it green.
Q 06Who is Anne's 'bosom friend' and next-door neighbour?
Diana Barry
Anne admires her black hair and flawless complexion; she is the only girl of Anne's age who lives near Green Gables.
Q 07Anne accidentally gets Diana drunk by serving what, believing it to be raspberry cordial?
Currant wine
Mrs. Barry bans the friendship until Anne saves Diana's little sister Minnie May from croup.
Q 08What nickname does Gilbert call Anne in class, prompting her to break a slate over his head?
Carrots
He was pulling her braid to get her attention; she refuses to speak to him for years despite his apologies.
Q 09Anne accidentally dyes her hair which colour while trying to make it black?
Green
It is one of several domestic 'scrapes' that punctuate her first years at Green Gables.
Q 10Anne wins the Avery Scholarship for the top student in which subject at Queen's Academy?
English
She earns her teaching licence in one year instead of two, and the scholarship would have taken her to Redmond College, based on Dalhousie.
Q 11How does Matthew Cuthbert die near the end of the book?
A heart attack after a bank failure
The failure wipes out the Cuthberts' savings, and Anne gives up her scholarship to stay with Marilla, whose eyesight is failing.
Q 12At the end of the novel, Gilbert gives up which post so that Anne can stay near Marilla?
The Avonlea School teaching job
He takes the White Sands School instead, and the gesture finally ends the years-long feud.
Q 13Which busybody neighbour, mother of ten, gets off on the wrong foot with Anne but becomes close to her?
Mrs. Rachel Lynde
Q 21Which country has taught Anne of Green Gables in schools since 1952 and calls her 'Red-haired Anne'?
Japan
Couples fly to PEI to marry on the Green Gables grounds, and a replica of the farmhouse stands in a theme park in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido.
Q 22The 1979 anime Akage no An was directed by which future co-founder of Studio Ghibli?
Isao Takahata
He later cut its first six episodes into a 100-minute film that sat unreleased until a 2010 screening at the Ghibli Museum.
Q 23Who plays Anne in the 1985 CBC miniseries widely considered the definitive screen version?
Megan Follows
Both parts were among the highest-rated programmes ever shown on Canadian television, and it won a 1986 Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program.
Her husband Thomas is mentioned repeatedly but never actually appears in the book.
Q 14Which teacher replaces the unpopular Mr. Phillips and becomes a mentor and 'kindred spirit' to Anne?
Miss Muriel Stacy
Mr. Phillips kept misspelling Anne's name without the 'e' and openly courted his pupil Prissy Andrews.
Q 15Anne's late parents Bertha and Walter Shirley worked as what?
School teachers
Both died of fever within four days of each other when Anne was three months old.
Q 16Which wealthy relative of Diana's calls Anne 'the Anne-girl' and sends her beaded slippers for Christmas?
Great-aunt Josephine
Initially severe, the Charlottetown aunt is won over by Anne's imagination and invites the girls to tea.
Q 17Montgomery used a magazine photograph of which famous model as the face of Anne Shirley?
Evelyn Nesbit
She clipped it from New York's Metropolitan Magazine and kept it on her bedroom wall as a reminder of 'youthful idealism and spirituality'.
Q 18Montgomery said she wrote the novel at twilight looking over the fields of which real community?
Cavendish
The Green Gables farmhouse there, along with Balsam Hollow and Campbell Pond, became the heart of Prince Edward Island National Park.
Q 19Roughly how many copies has Anne of Green Gables sold worldwide?
Over 50 million
It has been translated into at least 36 languages, including a crowdfunded Scottish Gaelic edition, Anna Ruadh, in 2020.
Q 20Which newspaper panned the book in 1908, then admitted in 1996 it may have 'slipped up'?
The New York Times
The reviewer complained that Anne talked as if she had 'borrowed Bernard Shaw's dictionary'; Mark Twain, by contrast, called her the most delightful child since Alice.
Q 24Which actress plays Marilla Cuthbert in the 1985 miniseries?
Colleen Dewhurst
Richard Farnsworth played Matthew, and Jonathan Crombie played Gilbert; the trio returned for the 1987 sequel.
Q 25Which spin-off of the 1985 Anne of Green Gables miniseries ran on CBC from 1990 to 1996 without Anne appearing?
Road to Avonlea
It drew on characters and episodes from several of Montgomery's other books.
Q 26Anne with an E (2017–2019) was a CBC co-production with which streaming service?
Netflix
Moira Walley-Beckett's adaptation dug into the trauma beneath the novel; it was cancelled the morning after its third-season finale.
Q 27Who plays Anne in Anne with an E?
Amybeth McNulty
Geraldine James played Marilla, R. H. Thomson Matthew and Lucas Jade Zumann Gilbert.
Q 28The lost 1919 silent film starring Mary Miles Minter enraged Montgomery by moving the story to where?
New England
'A skunk and an American flag were introduced,' she fumed in her diary, 'both equally unknown in PE Island.'
Q 29The star of the 1934 film, born Dawn O'Day, did what after playing the part?
Legally took the name Anne Shirley
She kept the name for the rest of her career, including 1940's Anne of Windy Poplars.
Q 30Anne of Green Gables: The Musical premiered in 1965 at the festival in which city?
Charlottetown
It is Canada's longest-running main-stage musical, has played to more than 2 million people and appeared at the 1970 World's Fair in Osaka.