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(Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern In Ruth Hall, one of the bestsell...)
Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern 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. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
(Six months since, I was in a deplorable state of ignoranc...)
Six months since, I was in a deplorable state of ignorance as to the most felicitous style of Preface; at this lapse of time, I find myself not a whit the wiser. You will permit me, therefore, in pressing again your friendly hands, simply to say, that I hope my second offering of “Fern Leaves” will be more worthy of your acceptance, than the first.
Sara Payson Willis Parton was born on July 9, 1811 in Portland, Cumberland County, Maine, United States. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Willis and Hannah (Parker) Willis. Her father, the pugnacious editor of an anti-Federalist newspaper, was sixth in descent from an English ancestor who settled in Massachusetts about 1630. Her mother was a woman of intellect and personal attraction. They were parishioners of the Reverend Edward Payson, and, for his mother, they first named their daughter Grata Payson, but the name was later changed to Sara. While she was a small child the family removed to Boston.
Education
A robust little girl, Sara Payson Willis Parton attended Catharine Beecher's school at Hartford, where Harriet Beecher was a pupil-teacher. Her nickname in school was "Sal-Volatile" and her reputation was not for studiousness but for thought-lessness and a tendency to incur bills at local stores. Though the Willis home was frequented by clergymen, Sara never acquired great piety.
Career
After school days were over, Sara Payson Willis Parton contributed occasionally to the Youth's Companion, then published by her father. After her husband's death, she was obliged to earn a living for herself and two children and attempted sewing and teaching without success. The editor of a Boston home magazine paid her fifty cents for a paragraph called "The Model Minister, " signed "Fanny Fern. " The paragraph was copied in several Boston papers and thereafter she found a ready market for her life essays.
Her first volume of collected essays, Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio (1853), had a sale of 80, 000 copies and established her popularity. James Parton, on the staff of the Home Journal, one of whose publishers was Nathaniel P. Willis, Sara's brother, wrote to her, not knowing her identity, urging her to come to New York. At about the same time she began her connection with the New York Ledger, which lasted until her death. For the Ledger she wrote a weekly article, and this, together with her contributions to other papers, made her work amount to a story or sketch a day. She thought out her articles while engaged in other occupations and then wrote them rapidly. They show neither deep reflection nor intellectual quality. She wrote spontaneously, from experience and observation, on every-day subjects of human appeal, and was popular because her combination of common sense, sentiment, and occasional religious teaching met the demands of her age. She caustically satirized pretentiousness, cant, snobbery, and heartlessness displayed by wealth toward poverty, but never tired of eulogizing family life, children, old homes, gardens, and country beauties.
Her published volumes include: Fern Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio (1854), Little Ferns for Fanny's Little Friends (1854), Ruth Hall (1855), Rose Clark (1856), Fresh Leaves (1857), The Play-Day Book: New Stories for Little Folks (1857), A New Story Book for Children (1864), Folly as It Flies (1868), Ginger-Snaps (1870), Caper-Sauce: a Volume of Chit-Chat about Men, Women, and Things (1872).
During her last six years she fought a fatal disease. Sara Payson Willis Parton continued her articles by dictation when she could no longer use her hands. Her last, written a month before her death, was a farewell to Newport, where she had spent the summer. She died on October 10, 1872.
Achievements
Sara Payson Willis Parton became widely famous in America for her autobiographical novel Ruth Hall (1854), and for her humorous, satirical, and critical newspaper sketches and columns.
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Views
Quotations:
"I am convinced that there are times in everybody's experience when there is so much to be done, that the only way to do it is to sit down and do nothing. "
"There are no little things. "Little things, " so called, are the hinges of the universe. "
"The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. "
"Our domestic Napoleons, too many of them, give flattery, bonnets and bracelets to women, and everything else but - justice. "
"I wish one half the world were not fools, and the other half idiots. "
Personality
Sara Payson Willis Parton was witty and abrasive, and developed her writing style as an irreverent and iconoclastic satirist.
Connections
In 1837 Sara Payson Willis Parton was married to Charles H. Eldredge, cashier of a Boston bank, and for nine years led a happy life, except for the death of her first child. Her grief over this loss is reflected in many of her essays. On January 15, 1849, she was married to Samuel P. Farrington, a Boston merchant. Their marriage was probably terminated by divorce, since both remarried. On January 5, 1856, Sara married James Parton.
