Other editions of book Dear Enemy by Webster, Jean

Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs. First published in 1915, it was among the top ten best sellers in the US 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. (Wikipedia)

Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster’s novel Daddy-Long-Legs. The story as presented in a series of letters written by Sallie McBride, Judy Abbott’s college mate in Daddy-Long-Legs. Among the recipients of the letters are the president of the orphanage where Sallie is filling in until a new director can be installed, his wife (Judy Abbott of Daddy-Long-Legs), and the orphanage’s doctor (to whom Sallie addresses her letters: “Dear Enemy”).First Page:DEAR ENEMYBy Jean WebsterSTONE GATE, WORCESTER,MASSACHUSETTS,December 27.Dear Judy:Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money? Me I, Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you become addicted to the use of opium, and is this the raving of two fevered imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo.And you offer as bait an interesting Scotch doctor? My dear Judy, likewise my dear Jervis, I see through you! I know exactly the kind of family conference that has been held about the Pendleton fireside."Isn't it a pity that Sallie hasn't amounted to more since she left college? She ought to be doing something useful instead of frittering her time away in the petty social life of Worcester

Dear Enemy is the sequel to Jean Webster's novel Daddy-Long-Legs. First published in 1915, it was among the top ten best sellers in the US 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.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.

Jean Webster (pseudonym for Alice Jane Chandler Webster, July 24, 1876 – June 11, 1916) was an American writer and author of many books including Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy. Her best-known books feature lively and likeable young female protagonists who come of age intellectually, morally, and socially, but with enough humor, snappy dialogue, and gently biting social commentary to make her books palatable and enjoyable to contemporary readers.Alice Jane Chandler Webster was born in Fredonia, New York. She was the eldest child of Annie Moffet Webster and Charles Luther Webster. She lived her early childhood in a strongly matriarchal and activist setting, with her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother all living under the same roof. Her great-grandmother worked on temperance issues and her grandmother on racial equality and women's suffrage.

Nurse Annie Rawlings has seen the atrocities of war and believes, as do most Americans, in the inhumane depravity of the enemy--the Germans. But when a rogue rescue mission ends in tragedy, Annie finds herself behind enemy lines, captured and alone with a wounded German soldier. Through shared danger, faith, and a love of music, the two forge a bond that will be tested by prejudice and the separations of time and continents. When Karl is sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, their fragile relationship seems at an end. Annie searches for Karl, but friends--and a new suitor--urge her to get on with her life.Will she ever see her Dear Enemy again?

1915. Webster was a grandniece of Mark Twain. She was interested in social work, especially the fields of childcare and prison reform, but her main occupation was writing. She wrote a number of short stories and novels for younger readers including her most famous work, Daddy Long-Legs. In Dear Enemy, Sallie McBride, the dear friend of Judy Abbot (heroine of Daddy Long-Legs), accepts an appointment as superintendent of an orphanage and promptly embarks on a program of much needed reform. The book, while touching on serious social issues, does so in a delightfully written and entertaining manner.