Anne Shirley

Anne of Green Gables is a bestselling book by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery published in 1908. It was written as fiction for readers of all ages, but in recent decades has been considered a children's book. Montgomery found her inspiration for the book on an old piece of paper that she had written at a young age, describing a couple that were mistakenly sent an orphan girl instead of a boy, yet decided to keep her. Montgomery also drew upon her own childhood experiences in rural Prince Edward Island. Montgomery used a photograph of Evelyn Nesbit, clipped from an American magazine and pasted on the wall above her writing desk, as the model for Anne Shirley, the book's main character.

Since publication, Anne of Green Gables has sold over 50 million books, more books than Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In fact, Anne of Green Gables has sold nearly as many books as The Da Vinci Code (57 million). The only Twentieth-Century English-language novelists whose work has sold more copies are J.R.R. Tolkien, Agatha Christie, J.D. Salinger, and Dan Brown. In addition, this widely loved book is taught to students around the world.

Source: Wikipedia