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Would Anne and Emily be friends if they met? I asked myself as a young reader. Would Anne beat Emily in a bar fight? I ask myself today. I, like so many others before me, gobbled up the works of the patron saint of 19th-century Prince Edward Island orphans, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and had a clear favorite among her fictional darlings: Emily, the goth poetess of PEI. Emily has come to mind a few times over the years, such as when I shouted “Yes!” at the television as Natasha Lyonne’s Russian Doll character, Nadia Vulvokov, beat me to the punch, monologuing about why Emily is superior to Anne. But I didn’t think to reread Emily of New Moon until I decided to replace my lost copy for my daughters’ future library. It had been so long since I last read it, I only remembered the broad strokes.
I don’t often reread because I generally don’t enjoy more of the same, and revisiting a childhood favorite, especially a classic, is a treacherous exercise. You’re sure to find something you shrugged off or didn’t even notice the first time that now takes some of the shine off of the book. I gave it a go anyway because my last visit to New Moon was distant enough to make the story feel new again, and because I had to find out if my Vulvokov-level certainty that Emily is indeed the better character would survive.
I want to make it clear that I love Anne and because, as the more popular character, Anne of Green Gables got more merch, I ended up consuming more Anne content, including the older edition of The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook (I made a mess of Marilla’s Plum Pudding). As a once insufferable optimist, I had to appreciate Anne’s sunny disposition. But my bourgeoning artistic, subcultural side gravitated to the less popular Emily—her books felt like my special secret.
Since Anne is such a massive figure of the literary canon, I’m not going to spend time rehashing who she is (here’s a useful link to someone else’s rereading of Anne of Green Gables). What I am going to do is share the big takeaways from a reread of the first book in the Emily series that factored into whether or not she got to hold onto her medal:
All Access members read on to find out if Emily survives a reread!
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