Audiobook · read by volunteers
Daddy-Long-Legs
Jean Webster (1876–1916)
Read by Betsie Bush, Kymm Zuckert, Alys AtteWater · 9 chapters · 3 h 37
About the book
Jerusha Abbott has spent her whole life in an orphanage, until one day a mysterious trustee decides to send her to college. The only condition: she must write him a letter every month, and he will never reply. Jerusha, who renames herself Judy, takes up the task with gusto. Her letters, chatty and funny and occasionally heartfelt, tell of lessons, friends, books she has never read and mistakes she is determined not to repeat. She addresses her unseen benefactor as Daddy-Long-Legs, after the glimpse she once caught of his shadow. Jean Webster's novel is a charming epistolary comedy about growing up, learning to think for yourself and finding out who you are. Nine parts, about three and a half hours, three readers, and a heroine whose voice is hard to resist. A delight from start to finish.
Introduction
Jean Webster (1876-1916) was an American author and a graduate of Vassar College. She was a great-niece of Mark Twain and a keen supporter of women's suffrage. Daddy-Long-Legs, published in 1912, was her most successful novel, and it was quickly adapted for the stage and later for film. It was followed by a sequel, Dear Enemy. The book's pleasures lie less in plot than in Judy's changing voice, which grows more confident and more thoughtful as the letters accumulate.
The book is written entirely in the form of letters. They follow the protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha Abbott, known as Judy, through her college years. She writes to a rich benefactor whom she has never seen. Because we read only her side of the correspondence, the novel gains an intimacy and a comic freedom: Judy can describe her classes, her roommates and her own misadventures with perfect candour, and we learn the shape of the story from what she chooses to tell. Webster, who was interested in social reform, uses the setting to touch on the position of young women in education and the conditions of orphans. The story is nevertheless light and brisk, with a keen sense of fun. Its simple structure and its charm have kept it popular for over a century.
The recording is divided into nine parts and runs for about three and a half hours. Three LibriVox volunteers share the reading.
It remains a delightful listen today, a clever and affectionate comedy that appeals to anyone who has ever felt out of place and found a way to make a home for themselves.
Public domain
Jean Webster died in 1916: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text