Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time

by Fanny Fern, Susan Belasco (Editor)

In Ruth Hall, one of the bestselling novels of the 1850s, Fanny Fern drew heavily on her own experiences: the death of her first child and her beloved husband, a bitter estrangement from her family, and her struggle to make a living as a writer. Written as a series of short vignettes and snatches of overheard conversations, it is as unconventional in style as in substance and strikingly modern in its impact.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, 19th Century, School, Literature, American, Historical Fiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1854

About the author

Fanny Fern, born Sara Willis (July 9, 1811 – October 10, 1872), was an American newspaper columnist, humorist, novelist, and author of children's stories in the 1850s-1870s. Fern's great popularity has been attributed to her conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers. By 1855, Fern was the highest-paid columnist in the United States, commanding $100 per week for her New York Ledger column.

A collection of her columns published in 1853 sold 70,000 copies in its first year. Her best-known work, the fictional autobiography Ruth Hall (1854), has become a popular subject among feminist literary scholars.

Reviews

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fanny Fern. Her real name was Sara Willis. In 1855 she was the highest-paid newspaper columnist in the US, according to the Wiki article about her. One hundred dollars per week back when that was a ton of money.

But did she get to that point overnight? Not hardly. She struggled with incredible difficulties in her life, and the 1854 book Ruth Hall is the "fictional autobiography" that shows the reader exactly what Fanny/Ruth experienced.

We meet Ruth on the eve of her wedding. She is fresh out of boarding school, hoping to at last be loved and admired, something she has never felt herself to be, either from family or fellow students. We pass the years with Ruth, laughing with her when her joy for life fills her world, crying with her when sad times strike (as they always do) and hurrying through the chapters to find out if good times return.

Meanwhile we also meet her parents, brother, a cousin or two, and her in-laws. As a group the entire bunch is the most miserable set of people I have ever read about. I was often infuriated at the way they treated Ruth. But I was also disgusted at times with Ruth herself for not standing up and saying or doing something to defend herself. I had to remind myself of the difference between our modern times and the 1800's. Women usually did not make waves back then, at least the 'well-bred' ones, that is. And Ruth was so young, so trusting. I wondered if she would ever grow up enough to handle herself in the real world.

I was more than halfway through the book before I thought to look at the Wiki page about the author and learned that this book was based on her own life. Although I confess it seems unusual that anyone could be as saintly as Ruth, and surely no one could be so wicked as that crowd of family? But there are always plenty of crudely ignorant people around. It is the idea that so many were gathered into one person's life in this way that boggles my mind.

I would like to share two paragraphs. The first is from the author's introduction and touched my heart when I read it:
"I present you with my first continuous story. I do not dignify it by the name of “A novel.” I am aware that it is entirely at variance with all set rules for novel-writing. There is no intricate plot; there are no startling developments, no hair-breadth escapes. I have compressed into one volume what I might have expanded into two or three. I have avoided long introductions and descriptions, and have entered unceremoniously and unannounced, into people’s houses, without stopping to ring the bell. Whether you will fancy this primitive mode of calling, whether you will like the company to which it introduces you, or whether you will like the book at all, I cannot tell. Still, I cherish the hope that, somewhere in the length and breadth of the land, it may fan into a flame, in some tried heart, the fading embers of hope, well-nigh extinguished by wintry fortune and summer friends."

And the second is a description of a woman who rented a room to Ruth. If you cannot see her clearly after reading this, you never will be able to see her:
In person Mrs. Waters was barber-pole-ish and ram-rod-y, and her taste in dress running mostly to stringy fabrics, assisted the bolster-y impression she created; her hands and wrists bore a strong resemblance to the yellow claws of defunct chickens, which children play “scare” with about Thanksgiving time; her feet were of turtle flatness, and her eyes—if you ever provoked a cat up to the bristling and scratching point, you may possibly form an idea of them."

Fanny Fern was my July Literary Birthday author and a new discovery for me. I am looking forward to reading her weekly columns, which were collected and published in book form. There are five of these volumes listed at Project Gutenberg, as well as one other novel and a children's book. I have a feeling my heart will be touched again.

[Connie G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fanny Fern wrote a fictionalized version of many incidents that happened in her own life. Written in 1854, the book shows how difficult it was for widows with children to survive. Fanny Fern had little help from her family after her husband died and left her impoverished. After some difficult times, Fanny Fern (and the fictional Ruth Hall) was successful as a newspaper columnist and a writer of popular fiction. Readers with an interest in the history of women's fiction would find Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time a valuable addition to their reading.

[path · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up quite unaware that the story was largely autobiographical of the author, Fanny Fern (a.k.a. Sara Payson Willis). The book tells the story of a woman, Ruth Hall, widowed at an early age, left to provide for herself and her children. She does so by overcoming obstacles to cultivate a career as a writer.

Ruth is characterized as someone with the most saintly qualities and no ambition motivated by anything less than the purest maternal instincts. She is good-natured, humble, self-effacing, patient, good-humored, and savvy. Her family on the other hand, including her in-laws, her father, and her brother are all presented as unequivocally and unrepentantly awful people: cruel, miserly, egotistical, chauvinistic, petty, and avaricious. I’m not spoiling anything to say that Ruth prevails over all adversity and her no-good family gets their due comeuppances.

There are no pretenses about this book. It is exactly the kind of story that is appears to be and it lacks subtlety as a result. Everyone is a caricature and they interact in uncompromisingly obvious ways. The result is that the story comes across as heavy-handedly moralistic.

But I don’t want to end the review on this note. I did read the book and there are aspects of it that I enjoyed or at least appreciated. For one, this book was describing the author’s own experience as a woman publishing in mid-19th century America. I may have a hard time believing that the events of Fern’s own experience were as tidy or as starkly black and white as Ruth’s, but the story gives me some sense of what those experiences must have been, despite their sanitized presentation. As a modern reader, I would have appreciated more nuance and more of a presentation of the complexity and difficulty of being woman writing at the time. Would readers of Fern’s time have appreciated that? Maybe not. Perhaps what they wanted in an autobiographical tale like this is something closer to the unprepossessing tales of virtue the Ruth wrote about under her alias: “Floy.” So, I am trying to be conscious that my expectations come from a very different place.

There are aspects of Ruth that I do admire, like perseverance and determination. I also appreciate how Fern closed the book with a happy ending for Ruth that did not resolve in a marriage or some other intervention by a man. The man present in Ruth’s life at the end of the book, Mr. Walter, is not even really an agent or a benefactor but more like someone who used his position to help Ruth get her footing in the publishing world, a perch from which Ruth then created her own fortune. Mr. Walter and Ruth leave the story on equal footing, which is as satisfying as anything.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wrote my master's thesis on Fanny Fern, so obviously this book is very special to me. Like a lot of first novels, it hews pretty closely to Fern's own biography, and therefore the plot doesn't have a lot of big surprises, but Fern had a real eye for human behavior, and even the smallest bit characters in the story are rendered with surprising depth in just a few words. This is definitely the easiest of Fern's novels to obtain these days, but if you want to read the best, I would recommend Rose Clark.

[Kirk · Rating 2 out of 5]

A roman a clef by the nineteenth-century Erma Bombeck. "Fanny Fern" aka Sara Willis Parton (no relation to Dolly) was an acerbic columnist from 1851-1872 and at one point America's highest paid newspaper contributor. In retrospect, it's easy to see why her writing would prove popular: she is one of the few nineteenth-cen women whose style tended more toward the sarcastic than the pious, and she was all about calling dudes in cravats out on their hypocrises---especially her brother, Nathaniel Parker Willis, who if he'd been born 150 years later would've been Simon on The Real Housewives of New York. Ruth Hall is FF's barely fictionalized account of her rise to fame. It was controversial in its time because it was seen as ungracious for a lady to take revenge in print on the family that had shanked her and her kids after the death of her first husband. If you're reading formalistically, you're likely to be disappointed: for all the addy-tude, the chapters are short and often fringed in sentimental apostrophes and exclamation points. It is notable for being one of the few novels of the day not to submit to the marriage plot---something even Alcott in Little Womenz couldn't avoid. Yet the real interest here is the biographical background. Even in its day the book was a bestsmeller because folks were curious about who FF really was---and some schmuck she barbeques in the book outed her shortly after its publication, promptly doubling sales. Perhaps what's really interesting is the background FF leave out: her disastrous second marriage---forced on her by her family---is not part of Ruth's journey (although it is fictionalized in Fanny Ford, FF's second novel). FF left the louche and toiled into semi-poverty until she found her metier. The rest is history, and this book, for all its historical importance, sometimes errs on the side of bragging about it too much. There are interpolated fan letters that get mocked (a proto-Casey Kasem request that FF dedicate a column to a reader's dead dog Fido) and some protests-too-much blather about FF not pretending to be literature. So it's a mixed bag. Many in the class loved it ... way better than Moibus Dickus. But that's okay. It ain't like Melville needs us.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow! This book is crazy. The author has so much talent; she vividly and completely paints such stunning descriptions - fun! alive! intelligent! - with just a few words. The book itself is interesting in that it was written by a woman in the 1850's, and yet it eschews the marriage plot entirely. On the surface the book appears to disdain organized religion and to abhor racial prejudice, championing intelligence, hard work, and an almost secular ethic of fair treatment and individual freedom. But the agile brevity of the descriptions she paints foreshadows the larger problems with the book. Characterizations that bloom in seconds never grow or change as the plot drives forward. They certainly get reiterated in minute variations, sometimes fascinating, but ultimately repetitive. The initial "zinging" brilliance of her lampoon of the uncharitable relatives (and other religious hypocrites, pharisees and the like) quickly becomes a strident rant that heavy-handedly lifts up our heroine up to tiresome sainthood. And your sinking suspicion that the heroine is the author herself is entirely correct. The book is largely autobiographical, down to the relations with the uncaring relatives toward the end of the book. I don't want to give too much away. I think what was the absolute worst part of the book was the casual anti-semitism thrown in just pages after the Irish and African American characters debunk, in their relations with the heroine, the ugly prejudices of the "bad" characters, and repeated later in the book when Ruth finally gets a job at a publishing company. Someone said the Fanny Fern was the Erma Bombeck of the 1850's. I found her to be more of a cross between Oscar Wilde's aphoristic brilliance and Sarah Palin's down-homey, good-time-religion self-regard and self-satisfaction.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Hall can be rather sentimental at times if one looks at it from our 21st century eyes. I gave it four stars because it is a great example of American Victorian "women's" literature. Deserves to be read for the experience of reading a Victorian popular novel. I fear, however, that we, comfortably seated in our reading chairs nearly 150 years into the future, will find it easier to toss it aside as "sappy" and "emotional" rather than to bravely admit to enjoyinig it as the simple little gem that it is.

[Andrew Hoffert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read this for school.
Not the most critical of reviews, but the book was ok.
It was short, easy to follow/understand, and ultimately didn't bore me like most books that mandatory university reading.

[Ulyera · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I read this book in conjunction with an article by Dr. Ann D. Woods, titled "The 'Scribbling Woman' and Fanny Fern: Why Women Wrote" and presented on it for one of my grad classes. I wrote a paper on it and alas, the writing was unnecssary as the class discussion was a bit more informal. So I thought this would be a good place for it.

Ruth Hall and the Sin of Female Self-Determination
As I read Ruth Hall, I could not help but think of Virginia Wolfe’s titular novel A Room of One’s Own. The comparison proved its salience when I read Dr. Wood’s essay “The Scribbling Woman and Fanny Fern: Why Women Wrote.” The three texts emphasize the need for female self-determination, though for Ruth Hall the self-determination is born of an economic need that then stresses itself into a religious moral regarding the treatment of one’s neighbor; while for Wood and Wolfe’s text, the female determination is born of an independence of character and the innate ability of women to produce literature. My reading of Ruth Hall emphasized the need of female independence, which is contrasted by the hypocritical standards of patriarchal society which insists that one must work to earn their bread while simultaneously denying the self-determination of women within the context of the work force and society as a whole.
From the beginning, Ruth’s need for self-determination is evident. The neglect on part of her father and subsequent quasi abandonment of her at the boarding school, described in no uncertain terms, her need to find a suiter that could provide for her in the way her kin refused to. Despite the desperation of her life post-education, Fern remarks that “[Ruth’s] schoolmates wondering why she took so much pains to bother her head with those stupid books, when she was everyday growing prettier, and all the world knew that it was quite unnecessary for a pretty woman to be clever.” (Fern pg. 7) Aware of her helplessness within society, Ruth insists on her education beyond any practical need of employment, but of her own self-determination. Her education is a means of edifying herself and her mind rather than a ploy for economic advantage. This is where Wolfe’s A Room of One’s Own comes to mind. I will not delve deep into the analysis of Wolfe’s prose, and will rather express the sentiments rendered within me as a I reflected on Ruth’s situation. What if Ruth had been able to pursue this academic inclination sans the pressures of familial abandonment and the cruelties of promised poverty? If she had a room of her own and five hundred a year, what then could she accomplish?
Dr. Wood’s essay further illustrates this speculation with quotes from the predominate female writers of the time, while juxtaposing it with a quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne, which reads: “Fanny Fern, unlike her female competitors, was daringly true to her fundamental experience as a woman, while her critics accused her of betraying and lowering her feminine nature.” (Wood pg. 4) I find this quote to be quite unfair and slightly prejudiced. I, as many others across the nation, read The Scarlet Letter in high school and was made to feel deep sympathy for the main character and deep loathing for the man who could not visibly carry the shame of his sin, as his lover did. Hawthorne importantly brought within society the question of sin and its shame, and who in society we have deemed the bearer of guilt, while the other hides within the cloak of his gender. Hawthorne’s criticism of female writers lacks the context of the female gaze, which therefore cuts his understanding short. If Ruth Hall had simply been the account of Ruth’s romance with her husband and subsequent matrimony, would Hawthorne have regarded the novel with such reverence? I dare say no. Hawthorne criticizes the female writer for her writings which duck the fundamental nature of the female experience, but I ask then, how else would they be able to write and find audience?
It is understood in the novel, that Ruth comes to write as consequence of her poverty rather than an innate desire to see herself as an author. Hawthorne in my belief, misses the crux of the motivations behind the authorship of the female sex. Dr. Wood emphasizes this in her text, writing: “Women’s motives in writing are being stripped of all their aggressive content, until the woman writer seems practically anesthetized…” (Wood pg. 8) The aggressive content that then wills the female writer is the subjugation of her sex, and the fundamental misunderstanding of female self-determination. At the time that Fern wrote - and dare I say in present day - the admission of women within the literary realm was (or shall I say is) denoted as the castration of the male ego. Dr. Wood brings the illustration of Grace Greenwood’s “Zelma,” and the shame that the character heaps onto her husband by her artistic genius. Indeed, Dr. Wood mentions the final utterance of Zelma who says: “he will forgive me… when he sees that all the laurels have dropped away.” (Greenwood pg. 344) Fern’s self-determination and the revelation of her genius is only realized in the absence of her husband and the abandonment of the male figures within her life. Fern’s contemporaries remain under the watch of the male ego, and thus may not fully realize their self-determination as it will be interpreted as the castration of their guardian’s ego.
Concluding my thoughts on Ruth Hall, I found the text to be an examination of the self-determination of women which is subsequently realized by the death of the main character’s husband and the abandonment of the male figures within Ruth’s life. As Ruth’s cousin John Millet recounts in a letter to his mother: “Brother Tom writes me from college that at a party the other night, he happened to mention that ‘Floy’ was his cousin, when some one near him remarked, ‘I should think the less said about that, by ‘Floy’s’ relatives, the better.’ It frets Hyacinth to a frenzy to have her poverty alluded to.” (Fern pg. 259) Ruth’s literary genius, while innate and entirely owing to her own mental prowess, is only revealed when the predominant male form is forcibly cast from her side. Her self-determination is then seen as a castration not of her husband’s ego, but of the ego of her male relatives, and thus lies the indignation of Fern’s female counterparts. Their self-determination must be restrained within the confines of their patriarchal guardians, so thus not to create what was believed to be the castration of the male ego. This is mainly where I find context lacking within Hawthorne’s quote. Domesticity is inherent within the female text, because that is the position which they have been sequestered, and therefore where their self-determination may be realized for fear of patriarchal retribution.

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros: Jo March would feel really seen by Ruth. Cons: pretty much everything else about this book

[Davis Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a required read for an Early American Authors course, I was fully expecting to loathe this as it was purposefully included as an example of "low," popular fiction of the mid-century. Yes, it is by no means a masterpiece—no need to dwell on the painful attempts at humor (with the exception of the Skiddy interludes, which are admittedly quite funny), the sophomoric third-person interjections, and shockingly flat characters. However, I certainly don't think it is entirely without merit, though it is a historical curiosity, not a Great Book. Its narrative technique is quite innovative—fragmented, naturalistic, and well-controlled to simulate the unreleased tensions and dissatisfaction of the protagonist. There were some choice passages of rather effective prose and imagery. And the last quarter of the novel picks up steam considerably as Willis (Fern) investigates the relationship between art and life, practicality and creativity, that all makers have to deal with. The attention given to it by feminists is worthwhile to an extent, but this is far from an activist feminist text, essentially bidding women to make do within the status quo in order to live to their potential, and there isn't enough of a "subversive" voice to counter the sentimental style (unless this is to be taken as satirical, which I doubt in the extreme). I won't reread it or keep it around though. Frankly, there's just enough skill to save it from a one-star rating, but not a whole lot.

[shellyindallas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poor Ruth. She, like Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect. But she's tough and determined and driven and soon enough things go Ruth's way. Hooray!
I do have one issue with this book though. Apparently, Ruth Hall's story closely parallels her author's--Fanny Fern. So when you get to the end of the book after Ruth has found some success you become subjected to page after page of how great Ruth (aka Fanny) is. There are four (!) pages where "Ruth" visits a phrenologists and he explains, based on his feeling of her head or whatever it is a phrenologists does or did, how great she is. It comes off and self-indulgent and it turned me off to Fanny Fern which subsequently turned me off to Ruth Hall. Plus, it took me forever to distinguish which one (Ruth or Fanny) was the character and which one was the author--both names have a similar ring.

[Timothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a drag to read.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

tbh i wrote this for class but it applies here

Ruth Hall begins with an enchanting vibrancy. The largely plotless exposition is focused more on exploring its heroine’s entrance into a world of loving, feeling, sensing, and self-ownership than any developments in action or stakes. Beyond the insights into Ruth’s inner world, I found a lot to love in the introductions of most other characters. Old Mrs. Hall and her doctor husband were immediately amusing, if a bit unrealistic. The domestic dramas that unfolded between Ruth and her in-laws were dramatic and exciting, and seemed set up for growth on both sides. In the early chapters of the novel, I imagined a version of the story which was primarily focused on those relationships, and how they might challenge and struggle to meet each other over time.
But as the novel progressed, the initially vibrant character introductions were overshadowed by a lack of any development or depth. All characters, including the heroine, her antagonists, and the most insignificant of side characters were equally static and flat, more carriers of Fern’s morality and values than of authentic humanity and complexity. However, I recognize that Fern’s goal in writing Ruth Hall was not to create a perfect literary recreation of human life, but to make certain moral points, illuminate aspects of mid-19th century American culture, and even more so, to take control of the narrative of her life.
In comparing the plot of Ruth Hall to Fanny Fern’s biography in Encyclopedia Britannica, it became abundantly clear that writing Ruth Hall was a way for Fanny Fern to fictionalize the trials and successes of her own life, positioning her stand-in as a flawless heroine and all those who would challenge her success as dimensionless villains rid of any redeeming qualities. And who can blame her. The problem with this approach, for my personal enjoyment of Ruth Hall, was that Ruth became tiresomely perfect, and the novel’s villains became unbelievably evil, and over time I developed such a distaste for Ruth’s flawlessness that I did not trust her, or care what happened to her. The novel’s conclusion, which would have been quite lovely in isolation, was tedious, and bordered on irritating. I almost wanted Ruth and her children to perish in the (completely random) fire right before the end, because at the very least, that would have been surprising. Instead the fire served as another moment of self-indulgence on Fern’s part, and another physical example that all of Ruth’s dreams do come true, and that even in moments of extreme adversity, Ruth will prevail not because of anything she does, but simply because she deserves to.
While I may have ended the novel with the above feelings of irritation and exhaustion, I still enjoyed parts of it on the way. Although Fern sometimes indulged in what would now be considered literary cliches and faux pas, there were many instances where her use of language genuinely surprised and delighted me, particularly in the opening chapters, which treated Ruth’s coming of age as a sensory exploration—a discovery of all there is to think, feel, do, and be. In these chapters, the author/narrator often dips into Ruth’s consciousness and the insights we find there always feel fresh, and ring emotionally true. Young Ruth is the closest we ever get to a flawed Ruth. She almost sinfully revels in her senses, both of the material—the “blissful dream” of her new apartments (pg. 11)—and of the immaterial—her all-consuming love for her husband, Harry.
I appreciated, also, the reverence for the natural world present in these early chapters, although it only existed in contexts in which the wildness of nature was tamed or refined by Ruth’s feminine sensibilities. Part of what makes Ruth so perfect in the eyes of the narrator is her closeness to nature, and her simultaneous capacity to remove it from the natural world and integrate it into her human world. I thought that this, along with the frequent comparisons between motherhood and God—“Only the eye of God watches like a mother” (pg. 42)—had interesting implications about the divinity of womanhood as opposed to that of men. Even more interesting was how moments like these became increasingly rare as the story progressed—both as Ruth got older, and got closer to the market-based society which she fully inhabited by the conclusion.

[Sarah Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

No strong representation of diverse characters or minority identities.

Overall: 4.25-stars

Mature Themes: None

Possible Triggers: Yes
• Death of child
• Death of husband from typhoid fever
• Child abuse
• Misogyny
• Poverty
• Brief mention of anti-semitism


Ending: HFN: Ruth is reunited with her daughter Katy; Ruth and her daughters live happily together, suggesting Ruth's writing career is just taking off.

[a.rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was pleasantly surprised by this book! it's definitely very sad but there's some really hilarious lines and overall it's well-written and has some good morals. i hate hyacinth w a burning passion though

[Callie · Rating 3 out of 5]

this irritated me :)

[jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

another boring but readable book from class

[Cecelia Blum · Rating 2 out of 5]

19th century girlbossism

[Zach Short · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over the last few chapters, the music from the baptism scene of The Godfather plays.

[kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

she dropped the hottest diss of the 19th century

[Ingrid Slattum · Rating 4 out of 5]

the men in this book pissed me off to an insane degree

[Tencutepuppies]

so very cutesy, clever, and whimsical. my favorite of all the novels I’ve had to read for my lit class >>>

[Jenn Avery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruth Hall is, as its author Fanny Fern is careful to note, a "continuous story" rather than a novel. It is a work marked by a few covert postmodern gestures such as its vignette style, fragmented narrative, and its layers of subjectivity. At its core Ruth Hall takes up the popular nineteenth-century question of female authorship. Fern, like Marie Corelli in novels such as The Sorrow of Satan or The Murder of Delicia, manifests a literary protagonist who much resembles herself. Yet unlike Corelli whose reflective authoresses strive to suture together female literacy with morality, Fern brings together women's writing and economics. The "domestic tale" is steeped in matters that extend beyond the usual domestic realm as Hall is forced, after the death of her doting husband, to provide a liveable environment for her two daughters in the aftermath of rejection from her rich relatives.

Although Fern's marriage of writing and economy stood out as noteworthy what seemed most interesting for me was the thread of medicine and its connection to women's writing. Like Madame Bovary in Flaubert's classic tale, Hall is thrown with marriage into a world governed, to some degree, by medical discourse. "The doctor," Hall's father-in-law is, like Charles Bovary, a mediocre physician. His feeble attempts to govern the Hall home lead to his son and daughter eventually relocating, escaping the doctor's negligence and "Mis. Hall's" jealousy and frugality.

Moving away from the doctor's home does not, however, put an end to the Hall's interaction with the medical world. In fact, her exposure increases when Daisy, Halls's first daughter, becomes deathly ill and eventually dies when "the doctor" is reluctant to attend to her. The death of Harry, Hall's husband, brings another episode that is framed by the medical field. Again, traditional medicine fails and leaves Hall with overwhelming, nearly insurmountable, feelings of loss.

Hall is forced to strike out on her own after these two failures of traditional medicine leave her and her living daughters starving. She takes up residence at a boarding house governed by Mrs. Waters where she is thrown into a different kind of medical discourse. Waters proclaims herself to be a "physician -- none the less for being female." Her room is lined with "boxes of brown-bread-looking pills" and bottles with "labels that would have puzzled the most erudite M.D. who ever received a diploma." Waters is quick to wait on Hall in her poverty-stricken sicknesses but Hall refuses her services; "if there was anything Ruth was afraid of, it was Mrs. Waters's style of woman." Afraid of Waters's brand of medicine Hall goes on suffering until she meets one of Waters's other borders, Mr. Bond.

Bond is, like Waters, a dabbler in medicine. Hall hears the whir-whir-whir coming from his room and is curious about its origin until he offers to heal her sick daughter with "homeopathy," with which he "always treats" himself and has a "happy supply" always with him. He has had the "pleasure of relieving others in emergencies." Bond has an air of "goodness and sincerity" that influences Hall to accept his help where she would not consider Waters's offers. Hall goes on to admire Bond as her "senior" who is so much like what she would want her own father to be.

Bond's medicine is the only medicine in the novel that actually cures its patient. Developing a relationship with him leads Hall to renew her trust in people and encourages her to reach out to Mr. Walter, a publisher who recognizes her writing talent and makes her an offer in a more humane position with good pay.

Walter is not blind to Hall's talents yet he, too, must submerge her into medical discourse before he will proceed with his plans to increase her fame and fortune. Upon meeting Hall he asks, "Have you ever submitted your head to a phrenological examination?" She admits that she has no faith in this "science," to which Walter laughs and hires a professor to do an in-depth analysis of the shape of Hall's head. The chapter in which the professor conducts this analysis is the longest chapter of the book. Fern goes into great detail about the characteristics that phrenology reveals about Hall's character: ultimately, she is a genius.

Feeling affirmed and confident, Walter undertakes raising Hall up from her drudgery. Upon meeting her youngest daughter, who is much like Hall, Walter insists that she, too, should have her head examined.

The movement from traditional medicine (which is portrayed as quackery at its worst) to the outrageous branch of "female" medicine, to phrenology struck me as interesting. Hall is so dredged in medical discourse that I found it problematic that phrenology -- of all medical branches -- is finally the outlet through which the truth is made evident. It is, in fact, the tool that reveals the value of female authorship. It is, too, the backbone of the "domestic tale."

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my……finally finished. Very tedious book. Very draggy. Nice story. But such a drudgery!

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh what a maddening books. There’s a lovely story, drawn from the author’s own experiences, a story with something to say, and at times it’s wonderful, but there are too many times when it is spoiled by the author pushing her point, her side of the story, a little too hard.

Of course I should make some allowance for the fact that Fanny Fern’s ‘Present Time’ was in America in the middle of the 19th century, but that isn’t quite enough.

Fortunately I could see the heart of the story, and I am glad that I read it.

It begins beautifully, with Ruth, our heroine, looking out at the night sky on the eve of her wedding. Her mother had died when she was very young and her father, a man who was both wealthy and parsimonious, had sent her away to boarding school. He would be glad to have his daughter off his hands. And she was happy, because she was in love and the future seemed full of promise.

The story is told in a series of vignettes, looking at Ruth through many different pairs of eyes. It’s very effective.

Ruth and Harry are blissfully happy together. He works hard, he is very successful, and they move up in the world. They have just one problem: his mother. She thinks that Ruth is flighty. She thinks that she is a spendthrift. She thinks that she lets her children run wild. She can’t – or won’t – accept that the young couple have struck out on their own, and chosen how they want to live. For the moment.

Ruth’s world came crashing down when Harry was taken ill and died. She was nearly destitute, and neither her father nor her in-laws were prepared to help. They disagreed about much, but on one thing they were agreed – Ruth had made her bed and she must lie in it! And so Ruth moved to a cheap boarding house, where she struggled to support her daughters, struggled to keep going as wealthier friends snubbed her.

Ruth fell so low that she had to let one of her daughters to her mother-in law, to be brought up her way, because he just couldn’t support them all.

It was then that Ruth hit on the idea of becoming a newspaper columnist. She wrote late into the night, as her younger daughter, and she sent samples of her work to her brother, a successful publisher. He sent them back with a note saying that she had no talent, and that if she persisted in trying to get into print she would embarrass them both.

But Ruth did persist. She persuaded an editor to hire her, and her column – written under a pseudonym – was a huge hit. Ruth learned on her feet; she became a canny businesswoman, she found a publisher who believed in her and supported her, she brought her family back together, and she made all of those who had doubted her, snubbed her, criticised her, eat their words.

I loved the arc of the story: the happy marriage, the tragic loss, the struggle, the triumph against the odds. I loved the emotions that Ruth’s story provoked. And some of the vignettes were quite lovely.

But I couldn’t quite believe that the tired woman, plagued by terrible headaches became so competent quite so quickly. I know that grief can do terrible things, I know that mother love is so very powerful, I know that one small success can be a springboard, but a little more subtlety really would have made this a much better story.

I know that this is an autobiographical work, but I couldn’t help feeling that it lacked maturity, and a willingness to see different points of view. The author could see no fault in Ruth – and she spent far too much time in the later part of the book having all and sundry singing her praises – and she could find no understanding for the ‘villains’ in her life. Her mother in-law may have been a horror, but she turned into too much of a monster.

Few things in life are as black and white as this story paints them.

But not many novels from the middle of the 19th century allowed a woman to triumph over adversity by her own efforts, and to be standing alone on her own two feet on the end. That was lovely to see – especially with the knowledge that this was a roman a clef – the story was very readable, and so I’m glad that I read it, even though I was infuriated by it at times.

[Perry Whitford · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ruth Hall, a young, sensitive girl with an unfeeling father and a self-obsessed brother, finds love and marries into another family. Her husband treats her well but her in-laws are cold to her, 'like two scathed trees, dry, harsh, and uninviting'.

As Ruth grows into womanhood, her fortunes are shattered by the death of her husband. Her father and brother abandon her, her in-laws attempt to take her children from her, and left in a state of poverty she turns to writing as a way out.

Fanny Fern's wikipedia page makes her sound really interesting. A self-made woman, a proto-feminist, an early supporter of Walt Whitman. Ruth Hall is highly biographical, so I was expecting a strong heroine to emerge.

Far from it.

Ruth is so characterless in her misfortune, her relatives and would-be editors so petty and puny in their callousness that there is never a hint of any real drama, despite the death and destitution that plagues Ruth throughout.

It's not badly written at all, though mostly unengaging, yet Fern's penchant for airy and insubstantial poetic proclamations tended to irritate more than it pleases (e.g. 'her little bark breasted the billows, now rising high on the topmost wave, now merged in the shadows, but still steering with straining sides, and a heart of oak, for the nearing port of Independence.')

Worst of all though is the puffed-up vanity of the last third of the book, her rampant conceit hardly veiled as the author has all manor of sources heap praise after praise on her surrogate - editors called her a 'genius', various correspondences eulogizing her, and a phrenologist's report concluding that she 'made of finer clay than most of us.'

I am happy that Fanny Fern stuck it to her unfeeling family and all those greedy editors, but on this evidence she must have been insufferably full of herself.

Tedious, triflingly spiteful, self-satisfied rubbish.

[Hayley Tubrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Read this for University*

I want to add this book onto my shelves because I really enjoyed it. Not because it was necessarily a GREAT piece of writing, but because it is filled with fire.

I would say this book is semi-autobiographical, because it contains a bit of a jumble of stories from Fern’s life, with the character’s being based on real people. That truth in this book is what is so astonishing to me. How these events truly occurred and how Fern had to deal with them all.

Back to the fire I mentioned earlier: you can really hear the frustration and anger in the character Ruth as she faces obstacles and oppressive situations. Ruth never loses it on people, she never fully expresses her anger, but instead uses wit and satire to deal with her oppressors. This allows the reader to understand themselves just how angry Ruth is throughout her struggles not just as a woman, but more importantly, as a woman writer.

The story itself does not flow from one scene to the next, but it rather a collection of some of Fern’s memories/experiences. As a result, the novel is not eloquently written, but it shows Fern as a newbie to the world of novels.

I like that Ruth Hall is not perfect. I think perfection is not the point of this novel. It proves that you don’t have to be a perfect writer and have a perfectly constructed novel to be an author. Ruth Hall also illustrates that the CONTENT of the novel is what matters, which I believe is a catalyst to women’s voices being heard, and women writers simply being known and appreciated in America.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Hall is my favorite of "Fanny Fern's" books, and Belasco has done an excellent job of editing it. Yes, the book is mawkish and uber-sentimental, but underneath is a lava flow of anger. To some extent, the book is autobiographical, though Ruth is a bit of a Mary-Sue: pure, sweet-tempered, put-upon, and a genius. She's misunderstood by the conventional people around her.

But there's a bite here, too. Hypocrites are savaged, and Fern makes it clear how difficult it was for a woman to survive in 19th-century America--especially a widow with children. In one scene, Ruth sympathizes with the prostitutes she can see from her window. Her children go hungry as she attempts to get the few jobs available to women at the time; Fern contrasts Ruth's desperation with the smug satisfaction of the men in her life, who refuse to help her.

Probably because Fern was an essayist, the novel is a series of scenes. It works. The strung-together scenes feel more like real life than a more cohesive novel would have.

There are parts that are difficult to take. A black character is a caricature. Good characters are too good to be real; bad characters are dastardly to the bone. Fern wasn't actually that great a novelist. But there's a real satisfaction in watching Ruth overcome her obstacles; she works hard and earns her triumph. And that anger bubbling up through Fern's sentimentality is refreshing.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. The story begins very happily which is unusual so you know something bad will happen to Ruth. You really want Ruth to succeed because everyone is against her, and her in laws and brother are some of the most annoying characters i have ever read; they were so against Ruth, and it was very satisfying when she one out in the end. The interesting thing is Ruth only becomes a writer out of necessity. She has no desire to beat the literary marketplace as a woman, that is not her goal, she only wants to be able to provide for herself and her family. It's interesting because Ruth does succeed, but she is in no way a feminist and someone wanting to change things for women.

I did have a issue with the way the story is told. The chapters are very short, so it is a very quick read, and it mainly consists of conversations. There are no details about the setting or about the events. Because of this i felt like the story was lacking and i couldn't connect as well to it. However, it is a very interesting story considering it is loosely based off of the author herself and the events in her life, and i think some of things that happen to Ruth Franny may have wanted to happen to her or she would have wished she had done the things Ruth had done.