Dear Enemy

Dear Enemy is the 1915 sequel to Jean Webster's 1912 novel Daddy-Long-Legs. It was among the top 10 best sellers in the U.S. in 1916. The story is presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott's classmate and best friend in Daddy-Long-Legs. Among the recipients of the letters are Judy; Jervis Pendleton, Judy's husband and the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new superintendent can be installed; Gordon Hallock, a wealthy Congressman and Sallie's later fiancé; and the orphanage's doctor, embittered Scotsman Robin 'Sandy' MacRae (to whom Sallie addresses her letters: "Dear Enemy"). Webster employs the epistolary structure to good effect; Sallie's choices of what to recount to each of her correspondents reveal a lot about her relationships with them. Plot introduction As Daddy-Long-Legs traced Judy Abbott's growth from a young girl into an adult, Dear Enemy shows how Sallie McBride grows from a frivolous socialite to a mature woman and an able executive. It also follows the development of Sallie's relationships with Gordon Hallock, a wealthy politician, and Dr. Robin MacRae, the orphanage's physician. Both relationships are affected by Sallie's initial reluctance to commit herself to her job, and by her gradual realization of how happy the work makes her and how incomplete she'd feel without it. The daily calamities and triumphs of an orphanage superintendent are wittily described, often accompanied by the author's own stick-figure illustrations. Major themes The novel is set in rural Dutchess County, New York, early in the 20th century. It examines a number of social issues: how to care for orphans (and for children in general), divorce, and the value of women's work. (The latter is a natural extension of the theme of women's education in Daddy-Long-Legs.) While volunteer work by women is widely accepted, women working in responsible positions for pay is still viewed with some hostility by some characters, such as Gordon Hallock, Sallie's friend and later fiancé, and the Honorable Cyrus Wykoff, a trustee of the John Grier Home. The Hon. Cy (as Sallie calls him) objects to the JGH paying a salary to Betsy, Sallie's assistant: "She's a woman, and her family ought to support her." Though the Hon.