Jean Webster was writing in 1912, so her “Socialist” views would be labled as positively reactionary by modern standards: in a nutshell, Daddy long legs are the letters of an orphan girl plunged into the world of an posh girl’s college in 1908, and Dear Enemy is the letters of a posh society girl plunged into the world of an orphanage in 1912. The fact that the progessives in the books are the ones cheerfully advocationg Eugenics is just facinating. But for the purposes of this discussion, the point is that the happy, chipper epistolary tone we both loved in Sorecery and Cecelia is caught in these books as well.
Dangerosa, I’m not from the Twin Cities, have never even been to Minnesota, but I’ve always sorta had warm, mushy feelings about it for vauge reasons that probably go back to being a Betsy-Tacy fan, and I tend to pay attention to things like dedications and afterwards, and I like picking up on connections.