Daddy-Long-Legs is a 1912 epistolary novel by Jean Webster. The protagonist, a young girl named Jerusha &ldquo;Judy&rdquo; Abbot, was brought up at the John Grier Home, an old-fashioned orphanage. The children were completely dependent on charity and had to wear other people&#39;s cast-off clothes. At the age of 17, she finished her education and was at loose ends, still working in the dormitories at the institution where she was brought up.<br />?One day, after the asylum&#39;s trustees have made their monthly visit, Judy is informed by the asylum&#39;s dour matron that one of the trustees has offered to pay her way through college. He has&nbsp;spoken to her former teachers and thinks she has the potential to become an excellent writer. He will pay her tuition and also give her a generous monthly allowance. Judy must write him a monthly letter&nbsp;because he believes that letter-writing is important to the development of a writer. However, she will never know his identity; she must address the letters to Mr. John Smith, and he will never reply.<br />?Judy catches a glimpse of the shadow of her benefactor from the back&nbsp;and knows he is a tall long-legged man. Because of this, she jokingly calls him Daddy-Long-Legs. At the end of the book, the identity of Daddy-Long-Legs is revealed as Jervis Pendleton, whom she had met and fallen in love with while she was still unaware that he was Daddy-Long-Legs