Publisher's Synopsis
Anne's House of Dreams is a novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1917 by McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart. The novel is from a series of books written primarily for girls and young women, about a young girl named Anne Shirley. The books follow the course of Anne's life.The book begins with Anne and Gilbert's wedding, which takes place within the Green Gables orchard. After the marriage, they move to their first home together, which Anne calls their "house of dreams". Gilbert finds them alittle house on the seashore at Four Winds Point, a neighborhood near the village of Glen St. Mary, where he's to require over his uncle's practice .In Four Winds, Anne and Gilbert meet many interesting people, like Captain Jim, a former sailor who is now the keeper of the lighthouse, and Miss Cornelia Bryant, an woman in her 40s who lives alone in an emerald-green house and deems the Blythes a part of "the race that knows Joseph". Anne also meets her new neighbour, Leslie Moore, who lost her beloved brother and her father, then was forced by her mother to marry the mean-spirited and unscrupulous Dick Moore at age 16. She felt free for a year approximately after Dick disappeared on a sea voyage, but Captain Jim happened upon him in Cuba and brought him home, amnesiac, brain-damaged and usually helpless, and now hooked in to Leslie sort of a "big baby". Leslie becomes friends with Anne, but is usually bitter towards her because she is so happy and free, when Leslie can never have what Anne does.Anne's former guardian Marilla visits her occasionally and still plays a crucial role in her life. Marilla is present when Anne gives birth to her first child, Joyce, who dies shortly after birth (as Montgomery's second son did). After the baby's death, Anne and Leslie become closer as Leslie feels that Anne now understands tragedy and pain-as Leslie puts it, her happiness, although still great, is not any longer perfect, so there's less of a gulf between them.Later within the story, Leslie rents an area in her house to a writer named Owen Ford, who is that the grandson of the previous owners of Anne's House of Dreams, the Selwyns. Owen, who is looking to write down the good Canadian Novel, finds the inspiration he was trying to find in Captain Jim's shipboard diary, and transforms it into "The Life-Book of Captain Jim". While Owen is finishing the novel, he and Leslie independently realize they need feelings for every other, but both know they can't do anything about them. Owen leaves the Island and Leslie is even more miserable being trapped in her marriage to Dick.Gilbert examines Dick Moore and suspects that if Dick underwent surgery on his skull, he might recover his faculties. Anne and Miss Cornelia are both against the surgery, fearing that Leslie's life will become infinitely harder if Dick returns to himself, but Gilbert feels obligated to let Leslie know there's an opportunity for Dick. Leslie consents, and Dick undergoes the surgery in Montreal; when he awakens, he reveals that he's actually Dick's cousin George, who accompanied Dick to Cuba and was with him when Dick died of yellow jack twelve years before. George resembles Dick strongly because their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters, and both had an equivalent peculiar eye coloring abnormality (heterochromia) by which Captain Jim recognized "Dick" in Cuba years before.Leslie, abruptly let loose by this news, returns home, and considers taking a nursing course to urge on together with her life. Owen Ford returns to the Island to court Leslie after Miss Cornelia informs him of what went on, and that they become engaged. While this is often happening, Anne gives birth to her second child, a healthy son. he's named James Matthew, for Anne's guardian Matthew Cuthbert and for Captain Jim.
