Ruth Hall

Following on her meteoric rise to fame as a columnist, she signed a contract in February 1854 to write a full-length novel.

She finished Ruth Hall within a few months, and it was first published in November 1854.

The autobiographical novel can be divided into three phases: Ruth's happy marriage, impoverished widowhood, and rise to fame and financial independence as a newspaper columnist.

In the first chapter, young Ruth Ellet sits at her window on the night before her wedding, reflecting on her life so far.

When her mother died long ago, she was sent away to boarding school, where she excelled at writing compositions.

There is no love lost between Ruth and her father, who has plenty of money but begrudges her every penny; and although she adores her talented older brother, Hyacinth, he is a strange, cold-hearted man who slights his sister for her overtures of affection.

Ruth, therefore, pins all her hopes on her impending marriage to Harry Hall.

She duly marries Harry.

He is a good, loving man, and handsome and prosperous, too.

At this stage, the only thorn in Ruth's side is Harry's parents: old Mrs. Hall is so bitterly jealous of her son's pretty new wife that she finds fault with her constantly, and both in-laws meddle continually in Ruth's life.

When Harry and Ruth move to a farm five miles away, they follow him.

Harry and Ruth's first child, Daisy, brings them great joy.

In the grandparents' eyes, however, the little girl is "out of control", and they consider Ruth a terrible mother.

Ruth and Daisy play in the creek, and pick wild flowers together, which the grandmother hates.

Daisy becomes ill in the winter and dies of croup because Dr. Hall, Ruth's father-in-law refuses to take Ruth's call for help seriously and fails to attend to the child immediately.

Ruth and Harry have two more daughters, Katy and Nettie; then, while Nettie is still an infant, Harry contracts typhoid fever and dies.

Ruth, left with very little money, applies to her relatives for help.

The elder Halls and Ruth's father grudgingly provide her with a tiny income.

She moves into a boarding house in a slum district, just up the road from a brothel, and searches unsuccessfully for employment as a schoolteacher or a seamstress.

Her rich friends drop her, her relatives snub her, and only rarely does anyone offer help or encouragement.

When Katy falls ill, Mrs. Hall persuades her to give up Katy to them and then treats the little girl harshly.

Meanwhile, Ruth's funds continue to diminish, forcing her to move into a barren garret and live on bread and milk.

Ruth, nearly desperate, hits on the idea of writing for the newspapers.

She composes several samples and sends them to her brother Hyacinth, who is an influential publisher.

He sends the samples back, along with an insolent note telling her she has no talent.

Ruth perseveres, adopting the pen name 'Floy', and finally finds an editor, Mr. Lascom, who is willing to purchase her writings.

Her columns are a hit; soon, she is publishing several pieces a week for Mr. Lascom and for another editor, Mr. Tibbetts.

Subscription lists burgeon and fan mail comes pouring in, but Ruth is still barely getting by because neither editor will give her more money for her contributions.

Accordingly, when a publisher named Mr. Walter offers her twice her present rate of pay to work exclusively for his magazine, she accepts.

Mr. Walter becomes her best friend and advocate.

Since she now has to write only one piece per week, Ruth has time to compile a book-length selection of her columns.

This becomes a best-seller, making Ruth not only independent, but wealthy.

She ransoms Katy and moves into a comfortable hotel with both her daughters.

In the last scene, she visits her husband's grave and looks sadly at the space reserved for her at his side, then leaves the cemetery, thinking of the good things life might still have in store.

Ruth Hall was Fern's first novel; her previous writings were short newspaper editorials written in a brisk conversational style, usually under intense deadline pressure.

This hasty, staccato style carries over into the novel, which is just over 200 pages long in contemporary editions but contains forty separate chapters averaging two to three pages each.

The earlier chapters describing Ruth's marriage unfold as a series of vignettes presenting the heroine's life from various viewpoints.

Ruth's good qualities can be inferred mostly from her mother-in-law's efforts to blacken her character; in one scene, for example, old Mrs. Hall, desperate to find some fault with her hated rival, goes through Ruth's home room by room, conducting a spiteful internal monologue as she seeks avidly for the minutest error in housekeeping.

At this point, the narrator breaks into the narrative to apostrophise about the ominous future closing in on youthful innocence.

Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time is a roman à clef by Fanny Fern (pen name of Sara Payson Willis), a popular 19th-century newspaper writer.