Jean Webster's play /Daddy Long Legs /was publicized by public relations 
pioneer Edward Bernays. I discovered when I researched an article on 
book advertising for /A History of the Book in America/ that Bernays had 
learned his book publicity techniques from his experience as a 
theatrical promoter -- specifically in publicizing the play _Daddy Long 
Legs_. He helped form college "Daddy Long Legs" societies for the 
adoption and care of orphan children, and attracted newspapers to write 
about those societies. This went on to become a common technique, 
familiar now: The work became enmeshed with the issue it was in some 
sense "about," making it difficult to talk of the issue without 
reference to the play or book, while talk of the play or book became a 
natural segue to the issue. The book, in other words, was not primarily 
an artifact to be appreciated by knowledgeable readers for its literary 
qualities, or even for the emotional experience the reader might hope to 
have reading it, but rather as another source of information on a 
subject on which up-to-date people ought to have an opinion. I believe 
Bernays's publicity about the play mentioned Jean Webster's connection 
to Mark Twain a good deal.


I have some references on this if anyone wants to follow up.
-- Ellen

-- 

Ellen Gruber Garvey, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of English, New Jersey City University

Author, /Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War 
to the Harlem Renaissance 
<http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/LiteratureEnglish/?view=usa&ci=9780199927692>/
Visit the Scrapbook History website <http://scrapbookhistory.wordpress.com/>