Story summary
Daddy-Long-Legsのあらすじ
- 読了8分
- 8 parts
- 音声は近日公開
A girl in an orphanage sees a long shadow on a wall and soon writes monthly letters to a man she cannot name.
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Daddy-Long-Legsの概要
要約：読むのに8 minかかります
- 読書時間
- 約2 h 30 min2 h fast, 3 h slow
- 所要時間
- 35,600語
- ページ数
- 117ページ176 in large print
- ライブラリ内の難易度
- やさしいです short sentences, plain words
- 初版刊行年
- 1912by Jean Webster
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). 古典を読むのにかかる時間 · 更新日
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Daddy-Long-Legs in short
Daddy-Long-Legs follows one girl across four years of college, told through the letters she writes to a mysterious benefactor. She begins as an orphan with a quick tongue and no idea how other people live. She ends as a young woman with friends, a voice of her own and a view on how the world might be better run.
What Daddy-Long-Legs is about
What would you do if a tall shadow on a wall made you laugh, and moments later the man who cast it changed your life? That is how it begins for Jerusha Abbott, the oldest orphan at the John Grier Home. She is seventeen, and she has never been inside an ordinary house.
Daddy-Long-Legs is a novel by Jean Webster, told mainly in letters. Jerusha writes them once a month to a trustee who pays for her college. He will never answer. Over four years you get lessons, basketball, fudge, farm summers and one sharp quarrel about money.
対象読者. Readers who enjoy stories told through letters, candid and funny narrators, and college friendships will love this book. It also suits anyone who likes watching a young woman find her voice.
The story in 8 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A funny essay wins an orphan a future
The story opens on Blue Wednesday, the first Wednesday of each month, when the trustees visit the John Grier Home. Ninety-seven orphans must be scrubbed, combed and drilled to say yes sir and no sir. Jerusha, the oldest, does most of the work.
When the visit ends, she watches the carriages roll away. She tries to picture the homes they are heading for, but her imagination stops at the front porch. Then she is called to the matron. In the hall she sees the last trustee leave. The lights of his car throw his shadow along the wall, with legs and arms stretched out like a giant daddy-long-legs, and she laughs.
The matron has surprising news. Jerusha wrote an essay called Blue Wednesday that made fun of the Home, and one trustee found it so amusing that he will send her to college. She will receive thirty-five dollars a month, and in return she must write him a letter every month. She must address him as Mr. John Smith, which is not his name, and he will never reply.
Her humour, the very thing that might have got her punished, is what rescues her.
The quality that gets you scolded may be the very talent that opens a door.
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College gives Jerusha a new name and room
Her first letter, written from room 215 in Fergussen Hall, shows the voice that carries the whole book.
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Books, failure and illness bring Judy closer to Daddy
Books are where Judy learns most.
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A farm summer brings her a friend, Master Jervie
At the end of her first year, the matron offers to take Judy back to wash dishes at the asylum, and Judy writes that she would rather die.
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Judy insists on standing on her own feet
As the years pass, Judy's main struggle is about money and debt.
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Judy learns what a family really is
One theme runs through every letter, and it is belonging.
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Imagination, kindness and present joy go together
Judy thinks imagination is the most necessary quality a person can have, because it lets you stand in someone else's place.
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The letters make a one-sided talk feel alive
Most of the book consists of Judy's letters to a man who does not write back.
Read all 8 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Judy Abbott Born Jerusha, an orphan sent to college, she is funny, impulsive and proud, and she wants an education, a voice as a writer, and a family.
- Daddy-Long-Legs The tall, rich, unnamed trustee who pays for Judy's education and wants only her monthly letters, never answering them.
- Mrs. Lippett The matron of the John Grier Home, pompous with visitors and strict with the children, who delivers the news of the offer.
- Sallie McBride Judy's red-haired roommate and best friend, cheerful and warm, who shares her family and her good humour.
- Julia Rutledge Pendleton A proud roommate from an old New York family who slowly grows friendlier, and who has a rich and interesting uncle.
- Master Jervie Jervis Pendleton, Julia's tall uncle, easy to talk to, who loves books and the outdoors and becomes Judy's close friend.
- Mrs. Semple The farm keeper at Lock Willow, once a nurse to Master Jervie, who fusses over him and over Judy in turn.
How it ends (spoiler)
Judy learns that Jervis Pendleton, Master Jervie, is Daddy-Long-Legs, her secret benefactor. She had refused his proposal because she feared her unknown birth, but news of his illness makes her write to Daddy for advice. She visits his library in New York, and he greets her laughing. Stunned but happy, she goes home and writes her first love letter, saying that at last she belongs to someone.
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『Daddy-Long-Legs』についての質問
What is Daddy-Long-Legs about?
It tells the story of Jerusha Abbott, an orphan whose witty essay wins her a college education paid for by a secret trustee. She writes him monthly letters about her studies, friends and summers, and slowly grows into an independent young woman.
Why is she called Daddy-Long-Legs?
Judy glimpses her benefactor's back, then sees his shadow on a wall, stretched out like a daddy-long-legs insect. Since John Smith seems too impersonal, she chooses Daddy-Long-Legs, a pet name based on the one quality he will always retain: his height.
Is Daddy-Long-Legs a true story, and when was it written?
It is a work of fiction by Jean Webster, written in the early twentieth century. It draws on the world of women's colleges, orphanages and charities of that time, but Judy and her letters are invented.
Is Daddy-Long-Legs easy to read?
It is told in short, chatty letters in plain, lively language. Each letter stands on its own, with jokes, lists and postscripts, so you can read a few at a time and follow Judy's voice with ease.
What is the main message of Daddy-Long-Legs?
The book suggests that happiness comes from noticing small pleasures, that imagination and kindness make people better, and that independence matters as much as gratitude. It also asks what makes a family, beyond money or a name.
この版を引用します
Webster, Jean. Daddy-Long-Legs. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/daddy-long-legs.
Webster, J. (2026). Daddy-Long-Legs. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daddy-long-legs (Original work published 1912)
Webster, Jean. Daddy-Long-Legs. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daddy-long-legs.
@book{webster2026daddylonglegs,
author = {Webster, Jean},
title = {Daddy-Long-Legs},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/daddy-long-legs},
note = {First published 1912}
}
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