Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy

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. The themes of this book reflect upon 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. Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs. Dear Enemy shows how Sallie McBride grows from a frivolous socialite to a mature woman and an able executive.