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A New Brunswick missionary spread more than Christianity in Japan when she gave her friend, Hanako Muraoka, a copy of Anne of Green Gables in 1939. Muraoka secretly translated the novel (Akage No Anne means "Anne of the red hair" in Japanese), but kept it under wraps until after the Second World War, when Japanese educators embraced the work as an inspiring bit of western literature. It became part of the school curriculum in 1952.

Since then, the novel's carrot-topped protagonist has inspired dozens of fan clubs in Japan, including the Buttercups, named for one of Montgomery's favourite flowers, while thousands of Japanese tourists head to Anne's home, Prince Edward Island (map), every year. The University of P.E.I.'s faculty of nursing even has a sister school in Japan nicknamed "The Green Gables School of Nursing."

Japan is far from the only nation besotted with Anne. Every two years the L. M. Montgomery Institute in Charlottetown hosts academics from as far away as Israel and Sweden who study the life and work of the legendary author, while South Korea's national broadcasting network has run an hour-long program on Montgomery and Anne.