This is a novel by a woman writer in 1854, which was, I believe, rare. I loved it. My 5 stars reflect my feelings while reading and having read it. I cannot judge literary value but thought it was very well written and remarkably contemporary. The story is powerful. ( )

Read for class. Enjoyed it immensely for the story it told. ( )

Good story

Read this book for class. I enjoyed it. Not too many long descriptions, and didn't need prodding in the middle to keep the story going. ( )

"Fanny Fern" was the pen name of Sara Willis Parton, who wrote this fictionalized version of her life and career. Fern was primarily a newspaper columnist, and this book chronicles her journey from dependent young woman to married wife to bereaved widow with children to successful entrepreneur. It's written like a series of newspaper columns, with short choppy chapters, jumping from location to location. It's a little over-sentimental at the beginning, and it takes a while to get going, but once Ruth becomes a newspaper columnist and starts navigating the 19th-century business world, it becomes very entertaining, even if most of the characters, Ruth included, are somewhat one-dimensional. And unlike so many 19th-century novels, it doesn't end with a marriage, it begins with one, and for Ruth that makes all the difference.

Written in the early nineteenth century, Ruth Hall is a semi-autobiographical novel by Fanny Fern. The pseudonym Fanny Fern was used by Grata Payson Sara Willis, the highest-paid journalist in America during much of her career (around 1855). Ruth Hall tells the story of Ruth, a nature-loving girl. She marries Harry, does not get along well with her in-laws, and meets disaster when her husband dies. Left penniless, abandoned by her family, and needing to support her two daughters, Ruth must find the strength within herself to move on. The novel is of a hard-wrought success story: Ruth becomes a very successful writer, all by the skin of her own teeth and the workings of her own brain. She ultimately becomes very wealthy and retires to the country in solitude with her children, an independent woman.

As a sentimental work of fiction, the novel sometimes reads as melodramatic (especially when the intrusive narrator apostrophizes). However, the language is rich with description, and the story is touching. ( )