Dear Enemy

I’ve just reread Jean Webster’s Dear Enemy for an English paper I’m writing. It’s the lesser-known sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs, in which orphan Judy Abbot is sent to college by one of her orphanage’s trustees, and the two end up falling in love. In Dear Enemy, Judy and her husband ask Sallie McBride, Judy’s college roommate and best friend, to take over the management of the orphanage and make it a less awful place to live.

The Leopard Woman

They are few genres more sexist than the early 20th century romantic adventure novel. If you don’t believe me, read The Sheik. The Leopard Womanby Stewart Edward White, isn’t quite as bad as that, but it’s the same sort of storyline — the proud, adventurous woman being subdued by the strong, masterful hunter-type.

The masterful hunter, in this case, is named Culbertson, but in Africa he goes my the name of Kingozi. He’s an Englishman, and, along with a German named Winkleman, one of the world’s two foremost experts on Africa. The Leopard Woman was published in 1916, but I’m guessing it takes place a couple of years before that, because war breaks out between England and Germany halfway through the book.