Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster

The Story

• Setting: It takes place on the East Coast of the United States in the early 1910s
• Premise: Jerusha Abbott, aka Judy, lives in an orphanage, The John Grier Home. As a 17-year-old, the question of her future is a pressing one. She has already had an extension of her stay there because she has been able to pursue high school instead of being compelled to find a job. And as one of the eldest, she must take responsibility for the younger ones and has a long list of daily chores. Fortunately, one day, she is summoned to the chief housekeeper’s office, where she learns that one of the Trustees made an incredible offer: he will pay for her higher education, and she will be sent to college! In exchange, she will have to be serious about her studies and write a monthly letter to her secret benefactor to tell about her progress, studies and college life. But he will remain anonymous and never reply. Jerusha then takes the train to a new life full of promise and exciting discoveries.

A feelgood novel

Daddy-Long-Legs is a lovely story told from the point of view of Jerusha/Judy. The novel is in epistolary form, comprising the collection of letters she wrote to her benefactor during the years she spent at college.

It is a modern novel for the time of its publication. Men and women didn’t receive the same education, and the story is set at a point when things are changing. For once, the Trustees sent a girl to college, something they had never done before.

It starts like a fairy tale and will keep the good feeling all along. There are touching moments and funny ones. She has a great imagination, and the way she tells about her life is lively and honest. As the story progresses, we get to know her thoughts and feelings. We discover her new life at the same pace she does and get aware of the contrast she experiences with her former life. Especially how it shaped her and how she tries to change some aspects of it.

It is a cosy read, a feelgood novel at the opposite of Dark Academia.

Close reading

I will be very vague to avoid spoiling, but for those who would like to slow read the book, you may want to pay attention to:

• The different ways the orphanage shatters individuality
• The fairy tale elements, from being a foundling to being sent to a posh college
• The discrepancy between the wealth of the Trustees and the poverty of the orphanage
• The consequences of being raised in an orphanage on her personality, and how she has to cope with what was lacking
• How she sees herself and how it evolves over time
• How she discovers life once she is no longer in the orphanage, the way college is the opposite of the John Grier Home in all aspects
• How the secret benefactor stands for an imaginary family, and the roles she makes him play in her imagination
• The way she sees him and how it evolves over time
• Her honesty and her cheekiness in her letters: would you have been so open and so critical about the orphanage? Would you have played with his image that much and told him?