Daddy-Long-Legs (novel)
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Note: this article also contains information about the films based upon the book.
Daddy Long-Legs is a 1912 novel by an American writer Jean Webster. It follows the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha "Judy" Abbott, through her college years. She writes the letters to her benefactor, a rich man whom she has never seen.
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[edit] Plot summary
Jerusha Abbott was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage. The children were wholly dependent on charity and had to wear other people's cast-off clothes. Jerusha's unusual first name was selected by the matron off a grave stone while her surname was selected out of the phone book. At the age of 18, she has finished her education and is at loose ends, still working in the dormitories at the institution where she was brought up.
One day, after the asylum's trustees have made their monthly visit, Jerusha 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 also give her a generous monthly allowance. Jerusha 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 will never reply.
Jerusha 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 girls' college, but the name and location are never identified; however, men from Princeton University are frequently mentioned as dates, so it is certainly on the East Coast. She illustrates her letters with childlike line drawings, also created by Jean Webster.
The book chronicles Jerusha'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 orphan asylum, was never exposed. While she is at college, she becomes acquainted with Jervis Pendleton, the wealthy uncle of one of her classmates, and they become increasingly attached to each other, but her shame at her humble origins leads her to reject his marriage proposal.
At the end of the book, the identity of "Daddy Long-Legs" is revealed.
[edit] Dedication
The book is dedicated "To You." Today this book is often classified as young adult literature or even children’s literature, but at the time it was part of a trend of "girl" or "college girl" books which featured young female protagonists dealing with post-high-school concerns such as college, career, and marriage. These books predated the contemporary view of adolescence. Other authors who wrote in this vein include L. M. Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott, and later, Mary Stoltz.
[edit] Themes
The themes of this book reflect Webster's interests in social work and women's suffrage. Some scholars have criticized Daddy-Long-Legs as being an "anti-feminist fairy tale", while others have argued that Judy shows growing independence, including increasing disobedience to her benefactor and his wishes, and indeed succeeds in educating Daddy-Long-Legs that he cannot control her, and that his socialism needs to move from the academic into real life.[1]
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
This book was Webster's best-known work. It was made into a stage play and a 1952 British stage musical comedy called Love from Judy[1] as well as films in 1919 (starring Mary Pickford), 1931 (starring Janet Gaynor and Warner Baxter), a 1935 Shirley Temple adaptation called Curly Top and a 1955 film, Daddy Long Legs, (starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron), both of which departed considerably from the original novel.[2] In Japan, Daddy-Long-Legs was made into a musical anime TV special in 1979 by Tatsunoko Productions, directed by Masakazu Higuchi of Superbook fame. This was followed in 1990 by the TV serial Watashi no Ashinaga Ojisan (My Daddy-Long-Legs), directed by Kazuyoshi Yokota for the Nippon Animation studio as that year's installment of the studio's World Masterpiece Theater. The Tatsunoko TV special was released, dubbed in English, on home video in the United States. In 2005, the Korean movie Kidari Ajeossi (Daddy Long-Legs,) was released starring Ha Ji Won and Yeon Jung Hoon.
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