Notes:Cultural references and allusions

This is a list of cultural references and allusions in the Anne of Green Gables series and related works by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Anne of Green Gables
"The good stars met in your horoscope Made you of spirit and fire and dew."

- Anne of Green Gables – Epigraph

These two lines are from a poem called "Evelyn Hope", by Robert Browning. It is worth mentioning that the lines have been changed very slightly from the original poem: the original reads: "The good stars met in your horoscope/Made you of spirit, fire and dew". The quote at the beginning of Anne of Green Gables adds an extra "and".

"The little birds sang as if it were The one day of summer in all the year."

The quote above is from a poem called "The Vision of Sir Launfal", by James Russell Lowell. It is taken from Part First, stanza III.

"But there was a passenger dropped off for you – a little girl. She’s sitting out there on the shingles. I asked her to go into the ladies’ waiting room, but she informed me gravely that she preferred to stay outside. 'There was more scope for imagination,' she said. She’s a case, I should say."

'Scope for imagination' is borrowed from Laurence Stern's A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (Chapter 42, opening lines).

"I know ever so many pieces of poetry off by heart – "The Battle of Hohenlinden" and "Edinburgh after Flodden", and "Bingen on the Rhine", and most of the `Lady of the Lake' and most of 'The Seasons' by James Thomson. Don't you just love poetry that gives you a crinkly feeling up and down your back? There is a piece in the Fifth Reader - "The Downfall of Poland" - that is just full of thrills."

"Bingen on the Rhine" is a poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton. When Anne is relating her history to Marilla on the way to Mrs. Spencer's, she mentions it as one of the poems she has memorised. "The Battle of Hohenlinden" (1803) and "The Fall of Poland" (1799) are poems by Thomas Campbell (1777-1844). "Edinburgh after Flodden" is a poem by the Scottish poet William Edmondstoune Aytoun (1813-1865). The Lady of the Lake (1810) is a long narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). The Seasons (1730) is a long poem by the Scottish poet James Thomson (1700-1748).

"The shore road was 'woodsy and wild and lonesome'."

This quote is a reference to John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, "Cobbler Keezar's Vision".

"God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth."

This quote is the answer to the question "What is God?" in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (1674).

"Marilla felt more embarrassed than ever. She had intended to teach Anne the childish classic, 'Now I lay me down to sleep'."

"Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" is a popular children's prayer which has its origins the eighteenth century.

"I'll send to the manse tomorrow and borrow the Peep of Day series"

The Peep of Day; or, A Series of the Earliest Religious Instruction the Infant Mind is Capable of Receiving was an instructive religious book for children written by Favell Lee Mortimer (1802-1878).

"This isn't poetry, but it makes me feel just the way poetry does. "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name." That is just like a line of music."

This quote is a reference to "The Lord's Prayer" from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer (1662).

"Marilla was as fond of morals as the Duchess in Wonderland"

The Duchess is a character in Lewis Carroll's novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

"[Marilla] understood in dismay that Anne was actually enjoying her valley of humiliation"

This is a reference to The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678).

"Then all the other little girls recited a paraphrase. She [Miss Rogerson] asked me if I knew any. I told her I didn't, but I could recite, 'The Dog at His Master's Grave' if she liked. That's in the Third Royal Reader. It isn't a really truly religious piece of poetry, but it's so sad and melancholy that it might as well be."

"The Dog at His Master's Grave" is a poem that was written by Lydia Howard Huntly Sigourney.

"Quick as the slaughtered squadrons fell In Midian's evil day"

This was part of the nineteenth paraphrase which Anne's Sunday school teacher, Miss Rogerson, told Anne to learn and recite the next week in Sunday school. It is from an old Scottish Christmas carol called "The Race that Long in Darkness Pined".

"I sat just as still as I could and the text was Revelations, third chapter, second and third verses. It was a very long text. If I was a minister I'd pick the short, snappy ones."

Revelation 3:2-3 from the New Testament.

"Diana is going to teach me to sing a song called 'Nelly in the Hazel Dell.'"

"Nelly of the Hazel Dell", or "The Hazel Dell" (1853) was a popular song by George Frederick Root.

"Oh dear, I'm afraid Rachel was right from the first. But I've put my hand to the plough and I won't look back."

This quote is a reference to Luke 9:62.

"Alice Andrews is going to bring a new Pansy book next week and we're all going to read it out loud, chapter about, down by the brook."

"Pansy" was the pen name of Isabella Macdonald Alden (1841-1930), who wrote over one hundred Christian story books for children.

"It was like heaping coals of fire on my head."

This quote is a reference to Proverbs 25:22.

"The stars in their courses fight against me"

This quote is a reference to Judges 5:20.

"The Caesar's pageant shorn of Brutus' bust Did but of Rome's best son remind her more,"

This quote is taken from Canto the Fourth of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage by George Gordon, Lord Byron.

"[Prissy Andrews] 'climbed the slimy ladder, dark without one ray of light,'"

This quote is a reference to the poem that Prissy reads at the concert: "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight" by Rose Hartwick Thorpe (1867).

"When the choir sang 'Far above the Gentle Daisies', Anne gazed at the ceiling as if it were frescoed with angels"

This is a reference to the song "Far above the Gentle Daisies" written by George Cooper and composed by Harrison Millard (1869).

"Mr Phillips gave Mark Anthony's oration over the dead body of Caesar in the most heart-stirring tones."

Mark Anthony's speech over the dead body of Caesar (44 B.C.) was recorded by Dion Cassius in his History of Rome.

"Only one number on the program failed to interest her. When Gilbert Blythe recited 'Bingen on the Rhine' Anne picked up Rhoda Murray's library book and read it until he had finished, when she sat rigidly stiff and motionless while Diana clapped her hands until they tingled."

Gilbert Blythe recites "Bingen on the Rhine" at the Debating Club concert in February 1877, on Diana Barry's birthday.

"Oh, Anne, how could you pretend not to listen to him? When he came to the line, 'There's another, not a sister,' he looked right down at you."

Diana Barry also remarks on Gilbert's performance to Anne. "There's another, not a sister" is from the beginning of stanza five of "Bingen on the Rhine", though with the emphasis on the word "another" instead of the word "not". This is likely a reference to Gilbert's romantic interest in Anne at that point, though Anne was too stubborn to realise the romance of it.

"Mr Phillips gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews and I heard him say "sweets to the sweet"."

This quote is a reference to Act V Scene I of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

"We marched in procession down the road, two by two, with our bouquets and wreaths, singing "My Home on the Hill"."

This is a reference to the song "My Home on the Hill" by W. C. Baker (1866).

"[Ruby Gillis] asked if there was to be a Sunday-school picnic this summer. I didn't think that it was a very proper question to ask because it hadn't any connexion with the lesson - the lesson was about Daniel in the lions' den - but Mrs Allen just smiled and said she thought there would be."

This is a reference to chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament.

"'Mrs Barry had her table decorated,' said Anne, who was not entirely guiltless of the wisdom of the serpent"

This is a reference to chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis, where Satan, disguised as a snake, convinces Eve to taste the forbidden fruit. In chapter 21, Anne convinces Marilla to let her decorate the table for the minister's visit by appealing to Marilla's dislike of being outdone by Mrs Barry.

"All went merry as a marriage bell until Anne's layer cake was passed."

This is a reference to line 8 of "The Eve of Waterloo" by George Gordon, Lord Byron.

"For Anne to take things calmly would have been to change her nature. All 'spirit and fire and dew', as she was, the pleasures and pains of life came to her with trebled intensity."

This quote is another reference to "Evelyn Hope" by Robert Browning.

"Now for my father's arm, she said, my woman's heart farewell."

Anne recites "Mary, Queen o' Scots" by Henry Glassford Bell for recitation class and Ruby remarks that the above two lines 'made her blood run cold'.

"I'm bringing [Anne] up and not Rachel Lynde, who'd pick faults in the Angel Gabriel himself if he lived in Avonlea."

Marilla is referring to the Angel Gabriel of the Old and New Testaments, who mostly notably appears to the Virgin Mary to foretell the birth of Christ in the Gospel of Luke.

"Oh, Marilla, "what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive". That is poetry, but it is true."

Anne quotes from Sir Walter Scott's epic poem, Marmion (1808), after falling foul to vanity and accidentally dying her hair green.

"The stubborn spearsmen still made good Their dark impenetrable wood,"

This quote is another reference to Marmion by Sir Walter Scott; a poem which Miss Stacy made her pupils memorize for their English class.

"Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben-Hur in school yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian history."

This is a reference to the religious novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace (1880).

"'What is Gilbert Blythe going to be?' queried Marilla, seeing that Anne was opening her Caesar."

Julius Caesar, a Roman statesman, is also well-known for his Latin works of prose, most notably his military memoirs: The Gallic Wars and The Civil War. Anne reads Caesar's prose for her Latin class.

"Where the Brook and River Meet"

"Where the Brook and River Meet", the title of Chapter 31, is the second line of the third stanza of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Maidenhood".

"Hills peeped o'er hill and Alps on Alps arose."

This quote is a reference to "An Essay on Criticism" by Alexander Pope.

"Oh, Diana, tomorrow the geometry exam comes off and when I think of it it takes every bit of determination I possess to keep from opening my Euclid."

Anne is referring to Euclid of Alexandria, a Greek mathematician, also known as the "father of geometry".

"One moonbeam from the forehead to the crown."

This quote is a reference to the Fourth Book of Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Aurora is quite similar to Anne in some respects; namely she is a poor orphan with a lively imagination who is brought up by her no-nonsense maiden aunt and later achieves her aspiration of becoming a famous writer and marries the man she loves.

"Well, we heard him say - didn't we, Jane? - "Who is that girl on the platform with the splendid Titian hair? She has a face I should like to paint.""

This is a reference to Tiziano Vecellio, known in English as "Titian", a leading Italian Renaissance painter of the sixteenth century.

"I ought to be at home studying my Virgil - that horrid old professor gave us twenty lines to start in on tomorrow."

Virgil (70 B.C.-19 B.C), an ancient Roman poet, is best known for his three major works of Latin literature: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid.

"Even at Green Gables affairs slipped back into their old groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, although always with the aching sense of 'loss in all familiar things'."

This quote is a reference to Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl by John Greenleaf Whittier (1866).

"When [Anne] finally left [the graveyard] and walked down the long hill that sloped to the Lake of Shining Waters it was past sunset and all Avonlea lay before her in a dreamlike afterlight - 'a haunt of ancient peace'."

This quote is a reference to "The Palace of Art" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

""God's in His heaven, all's right with the world," whispered Anne softly."

The closing words to Anne of Green Gables are taken from Robert Browning's poem, Pippa Passes (1841).

Anne of Avonlea
"Flowers spring to blossom where she walks The careful ways of duty, Our hard, stiff lines of life with her Are flowing curves of beauty."

- Anne of Avonlea – Epigraph

This quote is from a poem called "Among the Hills" by John Greenleaf Whittier. It is featured in Among the Hills and Other Poems.

"When Anne entered the schoolroom she was confronted by prim rows of 'shining morning faces'"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 5: A Full-fledged Schoolma'am)

This quote is a reference to the famous "All the world's a stage" speech from Act II Scene VII of As You Like It by William Shakespeare.

"Isn't it something to have started a soul along a path that may end in Shakespeare and Paradise Lost?"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 5: A Full-fledged Schoolma'am)

This is a reference to John Milton's epic seventeenth-century poem, Paradise Lost, which explores the war in Heaven and the Fall of Man from the perspective of Lucifer.

"While the children read their verses Anne marshalled her shaky wits into order and looked over the array of little pilgrims to the Grown-up Land."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 5: A Full-fledged Schoolma'am)

This quote is an allusion to John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress with its use of allegorical place names.

"All Sorts and Conditions of Men ... and Women"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 6: All Sorts and Conditions of Men ... and Women)

"All Sorts and Conditions of Men ... and Women", the title of Chapter 6, is a reference to Walter Besant's 1882 slum novel All Sorts and Conditions of Men.

"Bliss is it on such a day to be alive; but to smell dying fir is very heaven. That's two thirds Wordsworth and one third Anne Shirley."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 6: All Sorts and Conditions of Men ... and Women)

This quote is a reference to William Wordsworth's poem "The French Revolution as it Appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement", which first appeared in the 1805 edition of The Prelude.

"Every morn is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new,"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 12: A Jonah Day)

This quote is a reference to the extended version of Susan Coolidge's poem "New Every Morning".

"We're to seek for beauty and refuse to see anything else. 'Begone, dull care'"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 13: A Golden Picnic)

This quote is a reference to the traditional English song, "Begone Dull Care", which has been dated back as far as the seventeenth century. The song was transcribed and compiled alongside other poems of the oral tradition in Robert Bell's 1857 collection, Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England.

"Everything was going well but Anne was beginning to feel nervous. It was surely time for Priscilla and Mrs Morgan to arrive. She made frequent trips to the gate and looked as anxiously down the lane as ever her namesake in the Bluebeard story peered from the tower casement."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 17: A Chapter of Accidents)

This quote is a reference to the fairy tale "Blue Beard", which was first popularized by Charles Perrault in 1697. In the story, Anne, sister-in-law to Blue Beard, keeps a frantic watch from a lofty tower to hasten the arrival of her brothers, so that they might save her sister from her execution.

"Over the mountains of the moon, Down the valley of the shadow."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 18: An Adventure on the Tory Road)

This quote is a reference to the 1849 poem, "Eldorado", by Edgar Allan Poe. Anne quotes this poem in response to Davy's question about the location of sleep.

"I'll amuse your Aunt Josephine with the "strange eventful history" of this afternoon when I go to town tomorrow. We've had a rather trying time, but it's over now. I've got the platter, and that rain has laid the dust beautifully. So "all's well that ends well"."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 18: An Adventure on the Tory Road)

"Strange eventful history" is a quote from Jacques' "All the world's a stage" speech from Act II Scene VII of William Shakespeare's As You Like It. "All's well that ends well" is a reference to Shakespeare's play, All's Well That Ends Well.

"There was a moment's stillness ... and then from the woods over the river came a multitude of fairy echoes, sweet, elusive, silvery, as if all the 'horns of elfland' were blowing against the sunset."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 21: Sweet Miss Lavendar)

This quote is a reference to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Blow, Bugle, Blow".

"Anne seems to me real stately and like a queen. But I'd like Kerrenhappuch if it happened to be your name."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 21: Sweet Miss Lavendar)

Here Diana makes a reference to Kerenhappuch, the third daughter of Job in the Bible.

"Anne and Diana came with the wholesome joy and exhilaration of the outer existence, which Miss Lavendar, 'the world forgetting, by the world forgot', had long ceased to share"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 23: Miss Lavendar's Romance)

This quote is a reference to line 208 of Alexander Pope's poem, "Eloisa to Abelard".

"'I only squealed once,' said Davy proudly. 'My garden was all smashed flat,' he continued mournfully, 'but so was Dora's,' he added in a tone which indicated that there was yet balm in Gilead."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 24: A Prophet in His Own Country)

This quote is a reference to Jeremiah 8:22.

"Under Mr Irving's praise Anne's face "burst flower-like into rosy bloom""

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 28: The Prince Comes Back to the Enchanted Palace)

This quote is a reference to the long narrative poem Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl by John Greenleaf Whittier, first published by Ticknor and Fields in 1866.

"[Anne] turned to confront Charlotta the Fourth, who was in the hall, all 'nods and becks and wreathed smiles'."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 28: The Prince Comes Back to the Enchanted Palace)

This quote is a reference to John Milton's pastoral poem, "L'Allegro" (1645).

"Perhaps some realization came to [Marilla] that after all it was better to have, like Anne, 'the vision and faculty divine'"

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 29: Poetry and Prose)

This quote is a reference to line 79 of "The Excursion: Being a Portion of the Recluse" by William Wordsworth.

"Anne, of late, had not been without her suspicions that Diana was proving false to the melancholy Byronic hero of her early dreams. But as 'things seen are mightier than things heard,', or suspected, the realization that it was actually so came to her with almost the shock of perfect surprise."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 29: Poetry and Prose)

This quote is a reference to Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem, "Enoch Arden" (1864). In the poem, Enoch is a happily married fisherman who, due to financial difficulties, is forced to undertake work as a merchant seaman and, through misfortune, becomes shipwrecked on a desert island. After ten years, Enoch is able to return home, only to find his wife, Annie, happily married to another man, believing Enoch to be long dead. Enoch never reveals himself to his wife, not wanting to mar her happiness, and dies of a broken heart. "Enoch Arden" is a poem very fitting with the themes of Anne of Avonlea, of romance, separation, and misunderstandings, (Mr and Mrs J. A. Harrison, and Miss Lavendar and Stephen Irving) and Gilbert's opinion that the love story of Lavendar and Stephen would 'have been more beautiful still, Anne, if there had been no separation or misunderstanding'.

"Like the helmet of Navarre, Charlotta's blue bows waved ever in the thickest of the fray."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 30: A Wedding at the Stone House)

This quote is a reference to Bertha Runkle's 1901 historical romance novel The Helmet of Navarre.

"By noon the rooms were decorated, the table beautifully laid; and upstairs was waiting a bride, 'adorned for her husband'."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 30: A Wedding at the Stone House)

This quote is a reference to Revelation 21:2.

"The two upper bows rather gave the impression of overgrown wings sprouting from Charlotta's neck, somewhat after the fashion of Raphael's cherubs."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 30: A Wedding at the Stone House)

This quote is a reference to Raphael's 1512 painting, Sistine Madonna.

"[Anne] sat down under the silver poplar to wait for Gilbert, feeling very tired but still unweariedly thinking 'long, long thoughts'."

- Anne of Avonlea (Chapter 30: A Wedding at the Stone House)

This quote is a reference to the poem "My Lost Youth" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which was first published in Putnam's Magazine in August 1855.

Anne of the Island
"All precious things discovered late To those that seek them issue forth, For Love in sequel works with Fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth."

- Anne of the Island – Epigraph

This is from "The Day-Dream" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It opens the part called "The Arrival".

"Harvest is ended and summer is gone."

Paraphrased from Jeremiah 8:20.

"You'll always keep a corner for me, won't you, Di darling? Not the spare room, of course -- old maids can't aspire to spare rooms, and I shall be as 'umble as Uriah Heep, and quite content with a little over-the-porch or off-the-parlour cubby hole."

This is a reference to David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. In it, there is a character called Uriah Heep who is constantly claiming to be humble (he pronounces it "'umble").

"Shoes and ships and sealing wax And cabbages and kings,"

This is from "The Walrus and the Carpenter", stanza 11, by Lewis Carroll. "The Walrus and the Carpenter" is one of the poems in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of 'faery lands forlorn' ..."

This is from stanza seven of "Ode to a Nightingale", by John Keats.

"And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

From 2 Corinthians 4:18.

"The fatal apple of Eden couldn't have had a rarer flavour ..."

Anne is referencing the old creation story in the book of Genesis, where Adam and Eve are punished for eating the fruit (sometimes assumed to be an apple, though it is never specifically stated) that grows on the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. This introduces sin into the world, and is what triggers God to banish Adam and Eve from the Garden. And since there is now sin in the world, there is also death, which may be why Anne referred to the apple as "fatal".

"Those apples have been as manna to a hungry soul."

Anne is possibly referring to the period of time in the Old Testament when the Israelites ate the food God provided for them for forty years while they wandered in the desert. The food that came in the morning was called manna, and the food that came in the evening was quail. Manna was thin flakes of bread, and literally came down from the skies. Both manna and quail fulfilled every need the Israelites had for food.

"Dora, like the immortal and most prudent Charlotte, who 'went on cutting bread and butter' when her frenzied lover's body had been carried past on a shutter, was one of those fortunate creatures who are seldom disturbed by anything."

This is a reference to "The Sorrows of Werther", by William Makepeace Thackeray.

"I feel like Byron's 'Childe Harold' – only it isn't really my 'native shore' that I'm watching."

This is a reference to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, by George Gordon, Lord Byron. The "native shore" quote comes from Canto the First, part XIII.

"And on Inkerman yet the wild bramble is gory, And those bleak heights henceforth shall be famous in story."

These lines which Anne quotes are from Lucile by Owen Meredith (Canto VI, Part VII).

"... she saw the Kingsport Harbour of nearly a century agone. Out of the mist came slowly a great frigate, brilliant with 'the meteor flag of England'."

The line is from "Ye Mariners of England: A Naval Old Ode" by Thomas Campbell.

"And so in mountain solitudes o'ertaken As by some spell divine, Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine."

This is the seventh stanza of the poem "Dickens in Camp", by Bret Harte.

"Let's go home around by Spofford Avenue. We can see all 'the handsome houses where the wealthy nobles dwell'."

This is from a poem called "The Lord of Burleigh", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

"I ain't scared now to say "if I should die before I wake""

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 7: Home Again)

This quote is a reference to the popular eighteenth-century children's prayer, "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep". Davy says this in reply to Anne after promising not to swear again.

"To sleep Jane went easily and speedily; but though very unlike Macbeth in most respects, she had certainly contrived to murder sleep for Anne"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 8: Anne's First Proposal)

This quote is a reference to Act II Scene II of William Shakespeare's Macbeth where Macbeth murders Duncan in his bed chamber. Jane had just proposed to Anne on behalf of her brother and was somewhat resentful toward the rejection.

"Stop it Pris. "The best is yet to be." Like the old Roman, we'll find a house or build one."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 9: An Unwelcome Lover and a Welcome Friend)

This quote is a reference to the poem "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning.

"'I feel as if something mysterious were going to happen right away - "by the pricking of my thumbs,"' said Anne, as they went up the slope."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 9: An Unwelcome Lover and a Welcome Friend)

This quote is from line 44 of Act IV Scene I of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

"Their names are Gog and Magog. Gog looks to the right and Magog to the left."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 10: Patty's Place)

The names Gog and Magog, the names of Miss Patty's two ornamental china dogs, are likely taken from Revelation 20:8.

"Girls, dear, I'm tired to death. I feel like the man without a country - or was it without a shadow?"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 10: Patty's Place)

In this quote Philippa is alluding to Edward Everett Hale's short story, "The Man Without a Country" (1863).

"Now you -' 'Toil not, neither do I spin,' finished Philippa."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 10: Patty's Place)

Here Philippa is quoting Matthew 6:28.

"'I had so,' cried Davy, but in the voice of one who doth protest too much"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 13: The Way of Transgressors)

This quote is a reference to Act III Scene II of Hamlet by William Shakespeare.

"So spake Anne loftily, little dreaming of the valley of humiliation awaiting her"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 15: A Dream Turned Upside Down)

This quote is a reference to The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1678).

"'Oh; Gilbert, not you,' implored Anne, in an et tu, Brute tone."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 15: A Dream Turned Upside Down)

This quote is a reference to the apparent last words spoken by Caesar as he is stabbed to death and recognizes Brutus among the assassins; 'et tu, Brute' was popularized in William Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar. Here Gilbert congratulates Anne on winning the Rollings Reliable prize, much to Anne's dismay over the whole affair.

"What, silent still and silent all? Oh, no, the voices of the dead Sound like the distant torrent's fall,"

This is from "The Isles of Greece", which is a poem featured in Canto the Third of Don Juan, by George Gordon, Lord Byron. It is the beginning of the eighth stanza.

"But, like Kipling's cat, he 'walked by himself'."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 16: Adjusted Relationships)

This quote is a reference to Rudyard Kipling's short story, "The Cat That Walked by Himself", which appears in the collection of Just So Stories (1902).

"He's a beautiful cat - this is, his disposition is beautiful. She called him Joseph because his coat is of many colours."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 16: Adjusted Relationships)

This quote is a reference to the story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis.

"[Anne] found Avonlea in the grip of such an early, cold, and stormy winter as even the 'oldest inhabitant' could not recall."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 18: Miss Josephine Remembers the Anne-Girl)

This quote is a likely reference to Mark Twain's speech, "The Weather", with a toast to "The Oldest Inhabitant - The Weather of New England".

"What are you reading?" "Pickwick" "That's a book that always makes me hungry,' said Phil. 'There's so much good eating in it. The characters seem always to be revelling on ham and eggs and milk punch. I generally go on a cupboard rummage after reading Pickwick.The mere thought reminds me that I'm starving."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 20: Gilbert Speaks)

Here Anne and Phil are referring to Charles Dickens' first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836), more commonly known as The Pickwick Papers.

"[Charlotta] wore her hair now in an enormous pompadour and had discarded the blue ribbon bows of auld lang syne"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 23: Paul Cannot Find the Rock-People)

This quote is a reference to Robert Burns' poem, "Auld Lang Syne", which popularized the traditional Scots folk song.

""Nobody axed me, sir, she said" - at least, nobody but that horrid little Dan Ranger"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 25: Enter Prince Charming)

Here Anne references the traditional English nursery rhyme, "Where Are You Going, My Pretty Maid?", while explaining to Aunt Jamesina why she avoided the university football match.

"Silly Phil! You know quite well that Jonas loves you." "But - he won't tell me so. And I can't make him. He looks it, I'll admit. But speak-to-me-only-with-thine-eyes isn't a really reliable reason for embroidering doilies and hem-stitching table-cloths."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 26: Enter Christine)

This quote is a reference to Ben Jonson's poem, "To Celia".

""The woods were God's first temples," quoted Anne softly."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 27: Mutual Confidences)

Here Anne quotes William Cullen Bryant's poem, "A Forest Hymn".

"Were not half the Redmond girls wildly envious? And what a charming sonnet he had sent her, with a box of violets, on her birthday! Anne knew every word of it by heart. It was very good stuff of its kind, too. Not exactly up to the level of Keats or Shakespeare - even Anne was not so deeply in love to think that. But it was very tolerable magazine verse. And it was addressed to her - not to Laura or Beatrice or the Maid of Athens, but to her, Anne Shirley."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 27: Mutual Confidences)

This quote alludes to famous instances of romantic correspondence and the history of the sonnet form, which is commonly used to express love. In the first instance, the Romantic poet, John Keats (b. 1795), famously wrote a number of devoted love letters and sonnets to his fiancée, Fanny Brawne, before his untimely death in 1821. In the second instance, William Shakespeare composed a collection of 154 sonnets, the first 126 to a young man, and the last 28 to a woman. As for the women alluded to, “Laura” is a reference to the mysterious muse to whom the Italian poet Petrarch addressed over 300 sonnets with his undying love, most of which appear in The Canzoniere; “Beatrice” is a Shakespearean character and the subject of Benedick’s sonnet, which he composes in Act V Scene II of the romantic-comedy, Much Ado About Nothing; and the “Maid of Athens” is the title of a love poem written by George Gordon, Lord Byron to the young Teresa Makri while he resided in Greece.

"Gilbert would never have dreamed of writing a sonnet to her eyebrows. But then, Gilbert could see a joke."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 27: Mutual Confidences)

This quote is an allusion to Jacques' "All the world's a stage" speech from Shakespeare's As You Like It; 'And then the lover, / Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad, / Made to his mistress' eyebrow'.

"So wags the world away," quoted Gilbert practically and a trifle absently."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 29: Diana's Wedding)

This quote is a reference to Ellen Mackay Hutchinson's poem, "So Wags the World Away".

"A pouring rainy night like this, coming after a hard day's grind, would squelch anyone but a Mark Tapley."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 35: The Last Redmond Year Opens)

In this quote, Anne is referring to the ever cheerful character, Mark Tapley, from Charles Dickens' novel, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844).

"The roof leaked and the rain came pattering down on my bed. There was no poetry in that. I had get up in the "mirk midnight" and chivvy round to pull the bedstead out of the drip"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 35: The Last Redmond Year Opens)

In this quote, Stella references Robert Burns' 1793 poem, "Lord Gregory".

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!""

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 36: The Gardeners' Call)

This quote is a reference to John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, "Maud Muller".

"Potent, wise, and reverend Seniors," quoted Phil."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 37: Full-Fledged B.A.'s)

Phil adapts the line "Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors," from William Shakespeare's Othello as she reflects on her time at Redmond.

"I've tried the world - it wears no more The colouring of romance it wore,"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 39: Deals with Weddings)

Here Anne quotes two lines from William Cullen Bryant's poem, "The Rivulet".

"Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning."

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 40: A Book of Revelation)

Anne quotes this line from Psalms 30:5 after learning that Gilbert will recover from his illness.

"I've come to ask you to go for one of our old-time rambles through September woods and "over hills where spices grow", this afternoon," said Gilbert"

- Anne of the Island (Chapter 41: Love Takes Up the Glass of Time)

This quote is a reference to Isaac Watts' hymn, "Who is This Fair One in Distress?".

Anne of Windy Poplars
"I withhold not my heart from any joy."

From Ecclesiastes 2:10. Anne quotes this line to Mrs Gibson, who promptly quashes it with a counter-quote, below:

"Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."

From Job 5:7. Mrs Gibson uses this as a cynical reminder to Anne.

"The quality of mercy is not strained."

Sally Nelson quotes this after Aunt Mouser gossips harshly and unrepentantly in front of her. Aunt Mouser promptly chides her, saying, 'Don't quote the Bible flippantly', even though Sally's quote is not from the Bible, but Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, scene I.

"From ghosties and ghoulies and long-legged beasties and things that go thump in the night, good Lord, deliver us."

Anne quotes this for comedic effect during her stay at Bonnyview, when a bump is literally heard in the night. It is an old Scottish prayer.

Anne's House of Dreams
"That was the night Gilbert recited 'Bingen on the Rhine,' and looked at you when he said, 'There's another, not a sister.' And you were so furious because he put your pink tissue rose in his breast pocket!"

"Bingen on the Rhine" is mentioned again just before Anne's wedding, by Diana, when she and Anne are reminiscing.

Rilla of Ingleside
"'Goldie' became so manifestly an inadequate name for the orange kitten that Walter, who was just then reading Stevenson's story, changed it to Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde. In his Dr. Jekyll mood the cat was a drowsy, affectionate, domestic, cushion-loving puss, who liked petting and gloried in being nursed and patted. Especially did he love to lie on his back and have his sleek, cream-coloured throat stroked gently while he purred in somnolent satisfaction. He was a notable purrer; never had there been an Ingleside cat who purred so constantly and so ecstatically."

Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde was a cat of two personalities who lived at Ingleside. He was named by Walter, who at that time was reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Chronicles of Avonlea
"Do I sleep, do I dream, do I wonder and doubt? Is things what they seem, or is visions about?"

This is a quote from a poem called "Further Language from Truthful James" by Bret Harte. Note that the wording has been changed slightly: in the original, the line is "Are things what they seem", whereas in Chronicles of Avonlea it is rendered as "Is things what they seem".