The story starts nine years after where “Anne’s House of Dreams” left us, when Anne is making a visit to Avonlea.

When she returns home to the old Morgan house, now named ‘”Ingleside”, we are introduced to her five children : James Matthew ‘Jem’, the eldest, now aged eight, Walter Cuthbert, who is almost seven and a bit of a ’sissy’, Anne ‘Nan’ and Diana ‘Di’ twin girls, who are four and nothing alike, Nan having brown hair and eyes like her father and Di having red hair and green eyes, and finally Shirley, two years old and Susan’s favorite, as she took care of him as an infant while Anne was very sick following his birth.

The book includes the dreadful, seemingly eternal visit of Gilbert’s disagreeable, oversensitive aunt Mary Maria Blythe, whose visit was only supposed to last two weeks but stretches on for months and only leaves when Anne unintentionally offends her by arranging a surprise birthday party, much to the relief of the family. It is in this book that Anne and Gilbert’s youngest child is born.

She is named Bertha Marilla Blythe, but is also called the roly-poly baby, or, on a daily basis ‘Rilla’. “Anne of Ingleside” also includes a series of adventures which spotlight one of Anne’s children at a time, and eventually Anne herself.

At the end of the book, Anne worries that Gilbert doesn’t love her anymore and takes her for granted, and spends a disagreeable evening with the widowed and childless Christine Stuart, who was once Anne’s rival - or so she thought - for Gilbert’s love.