Dear Enemy

By Jean Webster, 1915

I have just been holding an interview with a woman who wants to take a baby home to surprise her husband. I had a hard time convincing her that, since he is to support the child, it might be a delicate attention to consult him about its adoption. She argued stubbornly that it was none of his business, seeing that the onerous work of washing and dressing and training would fall upon her. I am really beginning to feel sorry for men. Some of them seem to have very few rights

This epistolary novel is a sequal to Daddy-Long-Legs. Sallie McBride leads an orphanage and expresses her difficulties, but also her joy, to several acquaintances, including the orphanage's doctor, addressed as « Dear Enemy » in the letters.

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As “Daddy-Long Legs”, I enjoyed the book very much, even if the other one was better in my opinion. In spite of the light plot, it deals with hot topics of its time like feminism or eugenism

Sallie's letters were particularly enjoyable and funny. The story was quite light and easy to read. I liked how she talks to the other protagonists, often with irony, and her art of story telling. She manages one hundred children and it was moving that given their painful previous lives she tries to educate them in being good people.

Daddy-Long-Legs was a bit more interesting to me. I believe it was because the plot had more twists, but maybe also because it was the first book by Webster I read. Concerning the two novels, they both revolve around “self-reliance”, as would say Emerson, but from a woman perspective.

Finally, the novel deals with major topics of its time. Feminism is here everywhere: through the leading of the institution by a lady; through letters concerning unhappy marriage and thus the right for a woman to lead her life “single-handed”; or the opinion given on woman's suffrage. It also tackles eugenism, mentioning the work of Goddard “The Kallikak Family”. However, my favorite part is when it dealt with animal cruelty: a boy who tortured a poor mouse is reeducated by the orphanage's doctor for the sake of animal protection.

#question Do you believe Daddy-Long-Legs and this novel are children literature?

Medicis