Louisa Collins was born 112 years before the author of Anne of Green Gables introduced her famous heroine. Though Louisa is not half so wildly imaginative as Anne nor half so educated, though her diary is down to earth and prosaic compared to Montgomery's novel, the forces that would later mold Anne can already be seen to be at work on her fellow Nova Scotian. Like Anne, Louisa enjoys reading romantic novels, and she gives evidence of using them as a reference point for interpreting the world around her. Though she never uses the phrase "bosom friend," it is evident she is as addicted to female society, in particular to Harriet Beamish, as Anne is to Diana Barry. Though there are important differences between the two young women, it is interesting to view Louisa Collins as near the start of a continuum that ends with Anne Shirley.After all, Anne herself was born out of the context of the world in which Lucy Maud found herself, a world in which Louisa herself had walked nearly a hundred years earlier. --from Introduction.