When I was a kid my mother sat down with my brother and I and read The Chronicles of Narnia out loud. She’d never read them growing up, and since our handy boxed set came already numbered we simply followed the reading order specified by the publisher, starting with The Magician’s Nephew and moving on from there. We loved them.

It was only later on that I learned we had read in the books in the chronological order, rather than the publication order which readers would have originally experienced, beginning with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I then discovered that there were vast arguments on the internet regarding which one is the optimum way to experience C.S. Lewis’s classic series. This revelation got nothing but a shrug from me – reading the Chronicles in chronological order only meant that I saw Narnia itself as the main character of the series, rather than the Pevensies and their friends. The only problem I’d had with this experience was wondering why on earth The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was the most famous of the series.

Moving ahead with this narrative, a couple of years ago I read Anne of Green Gables, and upon beginning this blog I went ahead and purchased the complete set of sequels to get the full experience. Once more, with no reason not to, I followed the publisher’s advice and read in numbered sequence, ending with Rilla of Ingleside. Naturally, I enjoyed some of the books more than others, and was not concerned about publication order until I was on chronological volume 6, Anne of Ingleside.

There were spoilers.

No one told me that there would be spoilers.

Having looked forward to that final book, Rilla of Ingleside (sixth in publication order), I was quite annoyed to suddenly have L.M. Montgomery herself telling me exactly what to expect for different characters in the upcoming war. I went looking for articles similar to the many I’d found on Narnia, passionately arguing for or against publication and chronological order.

I found crickets.

Having finished the Anne series, I truly wish I’d read an article like this before I ever began (or at least before I’d finished Anne of the Island, the last book before publication and chronological order split). Instead, I will be supplying the arguments myself in the hope that it will be of use to others.
Since I have only read them in chronological order, this defense of publication order will of course be somewhat theoretical in nature. And to make it easier to picture my forthcoming arguments, a list.

Publication order went like this:

Anne of Green Gables (1908)
Anne of Avonlea (1909)
Anne of the Island (1915)
Anne’s House of Dreams (1917)
Rainbow Valley (1919)
Rilla of Ingleside (1921)
Anne of Windy Poplars (1936)
Anne of Ingleside (1939)

Whereas the current order goes like this:

1. Anne of Green Gables (1908)
2. Anne of Avonlea (1909)
3. Anne of the Island (1915)
4. Anne of Windy Poplars (1936)
5. Anne’s House of Dreams (1917)
6. Anne of Ingleside (1939)
7. Rainbow Valley (1919)
8. Rilla of Ingleside (1921)
   
   If you haven’t read the books yet: You are who this article is meant for, so I will avoid heavy spoilers.

The six reasons

1. You avoid major spoilers for Rilla of Ingleside.
   
   In the final chapter of Anne of Ingleside, Montgomery decided to remind her fans of the tragedies “yet in store” for the Blythes. Since every person reading this in 1939 had doubtless read Rilla, she did not feel the need for subtle foreshadowing.
   
   When reading a war novel, you expect some characters to die. Since Anne has three sons, hinting that one of them won’t make it isn’t that much of a spoiler. But Montgomery doesn’t hint. In fact, she gives the whole game away.
   
   Here is the offending paragraph with names removed:
   
   [Anne’s son] was smiling in his sleep as someone who knew a charming secret. The moon was shining on his pillow through the bars of the leaded window … casting the shadow of a clearly defined cross on the wall above his head. In long after years Anne was to remember that and wonder if it were an omen of [historical battlefield] … of a cross-marked grave “somewhere in [Europe].” But tonight it was only a shadow … nothing more.
   
   So if you don’t want to know exactly which of Anne’s sons dies and where, if you want to go into the final story with all the painful uncertainty intact, you should read these books in the order Montgomery actually wrote them. It is clear that’s how she intended them to be experienced.
   
   
2. While Montgomery did not plan her series out in advance (as is the modern habit), the early books about Anne were still written in fairly quick succession. Anne of Avonlea followed after Green Gables by one year. There was a six year gap before she returned to that world and Anne’s college experiences in Anne of the Island, but from that point on she stuck with the series, bringing out a new story every other year until she reached a suitable conclusion with Rilla of Ingleside in 1921. After that? Fifteen years elapsed before Anne of Windy Poplars was published.
   
   What becomes apparent when looking at the original six compared to the final two installments is that Montgomery developed a very different mindset and even writing style between the two eras. There’s a thematic unity to the original set, with each of them featuring a centerpiece romance that offers a natural, optimistic conclusion to Montgomery’s episodic stories. Each book is an assemblage of subplots, with no single thread gaining precedence until reaching the end, where hope for the future is clearly embodied in these various successful courtships. This actually does feature in Anne of Green Gables (a coming-of-age story without any romance plot of its own), as the ending directly sets up Anne’s future love interest, who returns to feature heavily in Anne of the Island. In the surrounding novels, we are introduced to wistful spinsters, grieving widowers and tragic housewives, each of whom is granted a second chance at love – culminating with Anne’s own teenage daughter and the post-war future she won’t have to face alone.
   
   Are these stories predictable? Yes, but they’re also very hopeful and sweet, and when put in a row, they maintain a sense of internal logic, of renewal and resurgence. On the other hand, Windy Poplars and Ingleside have no standout love stories to tie everything together at the end, with the former’s crescendo arriving as Anne helps a little girl, and the latter lacking any overarching story whatsoever. They aren’t necessarily bad endings, but they don’t carry the same weight as previous books, and it’s noticeable – Windy Poplars especially feels like a set of short stories with too many characters to keep track of after the comparatively tight plotting of the first three. Put it aside until after Rilla and it will feel like something new.
   
   
3. Since the final books were inserted later on, it stands to reason that nothing of any importance can happen in them. They read like filler because they ARE filler. It didn’t have to be that way – Montgomery could have chosen to go back and flesh out minor characters. But she didn’t care to do that, preferring to create new characters who would have absolutely no bearing (or existence) in the chronological sequels. This is less of a problem in Windy Poplars, as it takes place in the separate town of Summerside, but it’s quite noticeable in Ingleside, as the Blythe children are contractually obligated to not have any local friends when Rainbow Valley begins. Consequently, every single kid in their town of Glen St. Mary is a total brat. These are the two longest books, and with the status quo set in stone, nothing important or surprising occurs in either, meaning that new readers of the series will definitely struggle with loss of momentum here.
   
   
4. Anne of Windy Poplars is commonly held as one of the weakest installments, but it might actually be improved by reinstatement as the 7th, rather than 4th, book. Anne visits Avonlea several times in this book, and these scenes are clearly meant to delight. However, glimpsing dear old Green Gables through the visits of Anne’s new friends feels rather humdrum in the 4th installment, because we’ve just gone there in every previous book. It’s only after this that the narrative moves to new locations permanently – which means that these happy visits are actually our last sight of classic Green Gables. This entire book is a nostalgic look back at young Anne with her life ahead of her, but because of its modern placement it feels more like Anne by numbers and, again, filler.
   
   
5. The same improvement would be offered to both Anne of Ingleside and Rainbow Valley in this manner. These two books chart very similar themes – pre-war innocence as depicted through the lives and dreams of the generation who would grow up to fight in it. Realistically, this translates to two books in a row about precocious children bouncing through well-meaning mischief. While it is nice to get acquainted with the Blythes before the Merediths arrive in Rainbow Valley, it’s a pity that it happens in the longest book in the series – and the one with spoilers.
   
   On the other hand, Rainbow Valley is certainly the more refined in theme and construction, but it’s slow to start and it would be a pity to give it less attention than it deserves (many of the negative reviews on GoodReads can be boiled down to “cute kid overdose”). Indeed, I only noticed how good Rainbow Valley actually was when I was over halfway through, as I was also less than enamoured of the premise. If you switch Anne of Ingleside from 6th to its original 8th place, you free up both books to be judged on merit rather than forced into an unnecessary competition which only shows up the weaknesses in both.
   
   
6. Anne of Ingleside was Montgomery’s final published novel. She suffered from depression for much of her life and this increased in severity towards the end (she died of a prescription drug overdose whose nature is debated). Whatever happened, there’s no doubt that she lost heart for Anne, and thus her late additions to the story are markedly different in tone. There’s a bitterness and exhaustion to them, with the communities of Ingleside and Summerside feeling heavy with scandals and sorrow – yet at the same time Montgomery’s trademark sentiment is overplayed, as if compensating for her own loss of convictions. Anne herself comes across like a different person, with sugar in her veins instead of her customary fire and dew. The lack of old characters dropping by indicates that Montgomery had no real interest in writing about them. Chapters aren’t even given names anymore (previously always a source for Montgomery’s sardonic wit, among other things). These are different stories, from another time, and they should be read as such.

What it comes down to is that the original six belong together. Shoehorning the final books in where they don’t belong does the series no favours and only highlights individual shortcomings. So you should read this series exactly as Montgomery wrote them, no matter what your Bantam editions might be telling you. By this method you will avoid spoilers, repetition, seesawing character development and thematic disunity all in one fell swoop.