Reread: February 2026
Some books become favourites because you discover them at exactly the right time.
I think Daddy-Long-Legs became one of mine before I had even read it.
When I was a child, I knew Judy Abbott through the Japanese anime My Daddy Long Legs. I remember coming home from school wanting to catch it on television. I loved that world — Judy going away to school, making friends, discovering a completely different life and writing all those letters to the mysterious man paying for her education.
Years later, when I was old enough to properly explore the internet, I discovered that the original Jean Webster novel was available free through Project Gutenberg.
Naturally, I read it.
And loved it.
So this reread came with a ridiculous amount of nostalgia attached.
Daddy-Long-Legs is told mostly through Judy’s letters to the anonymous benefactor who sends her to college after she grows up in an orphanage. She has never properly met him. She knows almost nothing about him. She has only caught a glimpse of his long shadow, which is how he ends up becoming Daddy-Long-Legs.
The letter format is probably one of the things I love most about the book.
You don’t simply get told that Judy changes. You watch it happen through the way she writes.
She arrives at college having spent her entire life in an institution, suddenly surrounded by girls who grew up with families, books, travel, beautiful homes and all sorts of ordinary experiences she has never had. Then, letter by letter, her world gets bigger.
She learns.
She reads.
She makes friends.
She develops opinions.
She gets annoyed.
She becomes ambitious.
And she becomes increasingly herself.
There is something enormously comforting about that.
I have always loved the period as well. The college life, the clothes, the letters, the expectations placed on young women, even the small descriptions of everyday life give the book a cosy atmosphere that works particularly well for me.
And then, of course, there is the romance.
Let’s not pretend the appeal is entirely about education and personal development. 🤣
There is definitely a bit of Cinderella wish fulfilment here.
An orphan girl is given an extraordinary opportunity. She gets an education. She discovers that she can write. Her entire life opens up before her.
And then she falls in love with a rich man.
I mean.
I’m not complaining.
I also realised while rereading it that part of the romantic appeal is very similar to what I love about You’ve Got Mail.
There is something ridiculously satisfying about two people becoming important to each other while one of them doesn’t fully understand who the other person really is.
That gap in knowledge creates a particular kind of tension that I apparently enjoy very much.
And no, I’m not explaining that any further.
Some things are better discovered while reading. 😄
What makes the story work for me, though, is Judy herself. She isn’t waiting around hoping somebody wealthy will rescue her. By the time the romance reaches its conclusion, she has already spent the book becoming independent, educated and determined to make something of herself.
The romantic ending is the cherry on top.
Perhaps that is why Daddy-Long-Legs has always felt like such a hopeful book to me.
It is about what can happen when somebody who has been given very little is finally given an opportunity.
A door opens.
Then another one.
And suddenly a life that once seemed completely predetermined becomes full of possibilities.
Reading it again still gave me that same fuzzy, warm feeling I associate with the story from childhood.
Part of that is certainly nostalgia. I can’t separate Jean Webster’s Judy completely from the Judy who used to appear on my television after school.
But I’m not sure I want to.
Some stories become part of your life that way.
And after all these years, Daddy-Long-Legs is still one of mine.