Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)
Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)
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Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)

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Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)

Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by the American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, as she leaves an orphanage and is sent to college by a benefactor whom she has never seen. The novel was initially serialized in the April–September 1912 issues of the Ladies' Home Journal, and first published in book form by The Century Company on September 28, 1912.

Jerusha "Judy" Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage. The children were completely dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual first name was selected by the matron from a gravestone (she hates it and uses "Judy" instead), while her surname was selected out of the phone book.

One day, after the asylum's trustees have made their monthly visit, Judy is informed by the asylum's dour matron that one of the trustees has offered to pay her way through college. He has spoken to her former teachers and thinks she has potential to become an excellent writer. He will pay her tuition and give her a generous monthly allowance. Judy must write him a monthly letter because he believes that letter-writing is important to the development of a writer. However, she will never know his identity; she must address the letters to Mr. John Smith, and he never will reply.

Judy catches a glimpse of the shadow of her benefactor from the back, and knows he is a tall long-legged man. Because of this, she jokingly calls him Daddy-Long-Legs. She attends a women’s college on the East Coast of the United States. She illustrates her letters with childlike line drawings, also created by Jean Webster.

The book chronicles Judy's educational, personal, and social growth. One of the first things she does at college is to change her name to Judy. She designs a rigorous reading program for herself and struggles to gain the basic cultural knowledge to which she, growing up in the bleak environment of the orphanage, never was exposed.

During her stay, she befriends Sallie McBride (the most entertaining person in the world) and Julia Rutledge Pendleton (the least so) and sups with them and Leonora Fenton.

Afterwards, Judy graduates from college and is pursuing her dream to become a writer. However, Julia's uncle Jervis proposes to Judy and she refuses because someone like her wouldn't be good enough to marry a Pendleton. After this, Jervis catches a deadly illness during a trip to Canada. Meanwhile, Judy is excited to be invited to meet Daddy Long-Legs in New York City. When she arrives, she discovers that Jervis is Daddy Long-Legs. She reconsiders Jervis’ proposal and accepts him as her husband.

Jerusha Abbott - Although she came from John Grier Home, an orphanage, she entered college

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