Anne of Green Gables was first published by L.C. Page & Co. of Boston on June 13, 1908.[18] The book quickly became a best seller. Over 19,000 copies were sold in the first five months. Since then, over 50 million copies have been sold worldwide.[19] A full scan of the first edition, first impression is provided by the L. M. Montgomery Institute.
Montgomery's original manuscript is preserved by the Confederation Centre of the Arts, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Since 2022, the Centre has hosted a project in which digital images of the entire manuscript can be examined online. A transcript of the manuscript was published by Nimbus Publishing in 2019.
Montgomery's original typescript and the corrected proofs are lost.[20]
The first edition has errors in the text. Critical editions will identify corrections that have been applied to the text by the editor. The choice of corrections depends on the editor, and varies across editions. As an example, the Penguin Classics edition,[21] edited by Benjamin Lefebvre, lists the following corrections:
| Chapter | Page | Text With Link | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| TOC | vii | Mrs. Rachael Lynde Is Surprised | Change to Rachel, to match the body of the text |
| TOC | vii | Mrs. Rachael Lynde Is Properly Horrified | Change to Rachel, to match the body of the text |
| 1 | 3 | people called “Rachel Lynde’s husband—was | Add close-quote, after husband |
| 1 | 8 | Barnado boy | Misspelled, should be Barnardo |
| 8 | 82 | anl then studied diligently | Misspelled, should be and then |
| 16 | 169 | to forget, said Anne | Missing end-quote after forget |
| 17 | 187 | Ella May Macpherson | Capitalize to MacPherson |
| 20 | 231 | resent the license | Change to repent |
| 25 | 272 | it is much as he did | Change to it is as much as he did |
| 30 | 335 | must win. because it | Change to comma must win, because it |
| 30 | 335 | tucked ‘Ben-Hur’ between | Change to Ben Hur, to make consistent |
| 32 | 365 | Spurgeon stayed resolutely away | Add period after away. |
| 35 | 398 | professor Tremaine | Capitalize to Professor Tremaine |
| 38 | 426 | told her Thomas that night. | Change period to colon that night: |
