Fanny Fern

Fanny Fern
Portrait of Fanny Fern
Portrait of Fanny Fern
BornSara Payson Willis
(1811-07-09)July 9, 1811
Portland, Maine, US
DiedOctober 10, 1872(1872-10-10) (aged 61)
Manhattan, New York, US
Spouse
Charles Harrington Eldredge
(m. 1837; died 1845)
Samuel P. Farrington
(m. 1848; div. 1853)
(m. 1856)
Children3
RelativesNathaniel Willis (grandfather)
Nathaniel Willis (father)
Nathaniel Parker Willis (brother)
Richard Storrs Willis (brother)

Fanny Fern (born Sara Payson Willis; July 9, 1811 – October 10, 1872), was an American novelist, children's writer, humorist, and newspaper columnist in the 1850s to 1870s. Her popularity has been attributed to a conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers.

By 1855, Fern was the highest-paid US columnist, commanding $100 per week for her New York Ledger column.[1] 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.

  1. ^ Fern 1986, p. xv, xviii