Daddy-Long-Legs. Jean Webster

      Being descended from illustrious people has its obvious disadvantages. One of these is the difficulty of winning recognition for one's work entirely apart from consideration of the conspicuous name of one's ancestors. Jean Webster had the distinction of belonging to a famous family, but she constantly felt that such an inheritance stood in the way of achieving on her own merits. Her mother, Annie Clemens, was a niece of Mark Twain and her father, Charles Luther Webster, was a member of the publishing firm to which Mark Twain once belonged. Bom and reared in a literary atmosphere of this sort, she rather naturally came by the gift of telling a good story, and of course the quality of humor which permeates her writing was inherent in her. Her mother was a southerner and her father a New Englander of British and German lineage. Among her eminent forebears were also Daniel Boone and Eli Whitney.

      Jean Webster's real name was Alice Jane Chandler Webster, the Jane being after Mark Twain's mother. When she went to college, her room-mate's name was also Alice, so Miss Webster was asked to take her second name. But since to her Jane seemed a little old-fashioned, she changed it to Jean and ever after went by that name. She was born in Fredonia, New York, July 24, 1876, and her early school days were spent there. Later she attended Lady Jane Grey School at Binghamton, New York, from which she was graduated in 1896. At Vassar College, where she took her degree in 190 1, she proved herself an able student but a poor speller. Once upon being asked by a horrified teacher, "On what authority do you spell thus?" she replied, "Webster."

      She learned early to write easily and well. At college she majored in English and economics and there began to fit herself for a literary career. While a student, she was not only correspondent for Poughkeepsie newspapers but also a contributor of stories to the Vassar Miscellany. Her work in economics meant visits to institutions for delinquent and destitute children — visits which impressed her greatly and directed her imagination in her writing. Once while writing for the newspaper, her imagination quite ran away with her, and she converted some fanciful information into a practical joke which nearly cost her the job.

      She had great difficulty in getting her earliest stories recognized, but once she had succeeded her fame rapidly grew. After being graduated from college, she became an independent writer, and her first venture was to publish a collection of stories which she had written as a student. The book bore the title When Patty Went to College, and began the famous Patty series which remains unmatched in this field.

      Miss Webster traveled widely, spending much time in Italy where during donkey rides in the mountains she found the setting for Jerry Junior. Her Italian experiences resulted also in The Wheat Princess which she is said to have written while living with some nuns in a convent in the Sabine Mountains. But her happiest and most productive days were probably spent in an old house at 55 West Tenth Street, New York, for here she came in touch with life in Greenwich Village where the social workers came to know her and to love her.

      During these days she was an indefatigable worker, and the charm of her stories is due quite as much to her ardor for application as to innate ability. She spent long periods in writing her stories and then cut them down to desired length. Concerning her at the beginning of her

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