I’ve heard about the book “Daddy-Long-Legs” on several occasions, and knew there was a Fred Astaire-Leslie Caron movie based on it, but it wasn’t until the other day that I finally picked it up. You know I’m a big Louisa May Alcott/L.M. Montgomery/Gene Stratton-Porter fan – this book fits right into that genre and I was captivated immediately.
Jerusha Abbot has lived her entire life at the John Grier Asylum for Orphans. Now that she is seventeen, she’s lived there longer than most of their wards. The trustees have been at quite a loss to know what to do with her – until one of them makes an offer. He has, in the past, sent boys from the asylum to college, but never a girl. Now he wants to send Jerusha, and she’s to have new clothes and an allowance.
She hardly knows what to think or what to do with herself – she’s never had anything of her own before, let alone a whole new life. She wants to thank her benefactor, but he has made that a stipulation of the arrangement – she is never to meet him or know who he is. He wants her to send him a letter once a month, updating him on her schooling, and that is all the repayment he wants, but he will not answer her letters and he will never come to see her.
True to her nature, Jerusha begins writing him immediately, telling him all about her studies, the clothes she bought, and the friends she’s making. At this point the book switches from traditional narrative to letters, and we see Jerusha’s personality shining through as she keeps her benefactor updated. She calls him Daddy-Long-Legs because she saw his shadow as he was leaving the asylum, and he was very tall indeed.
For four years she corresponds with him monthly, often weekly, as she has no one else to talk to. Their friendship grows as he breaks some of his own rules, sending her flowers when she’s sick, nice presents at Christmas, and on one special occasion, a handwritten note. When she does finally meet him, he’s everything she could have hoped and more.
This was a beautiful story and I enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I read it all this evening and couldn’t put it down. While listed as a young adult novel, it’s a book that anyone would appreciate.
In fact, I liked it so much that I immediately hopped on Amazon and bought the movie. You’ll be getting a review on that before too much longer.
(This book was first published in 1912 by Century.)
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