Fanny Fern

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Sara Payson Willis, the journalist and novelist known as FF , was one of the most successful United States writers of the nineteenth century. Author of the best-selling Ruth Hall, she was also widely read as a columnist, a genre she worked in for twenty years.
Oval black-and-white, head-and-shoulders photograph of Fanny Fern. She is sitting with her cheek resting on her left hand. Her dark hair is parted in the middle, done in rigid waves. She is wearing earrings and a dark dress buttoned in front with thin stripes on her sleeves.

Milestones

9 July 1811

Sara Payson Willis , later novelist and journalist FF , was born in Portland, Maine, USA, the fifth of nine children in her family.
Walker, Nancy A. Fanny Fern. Twayne.
xiii

December 1854

FF published her first novel, Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time, with Mason Brothers .
Walker, Nancy A. Fanny Fern. Twayne.
xiv

9 June 1855

FF began the serialisation of her melodramatic novella Fanny Ford: A Story of Everyday Life for the New York Ledger. Earning $100 a column, she became the highest paid newspaper writer of the period.
Warren, Joyce. Fanny Fern: An Independent Woman. Rutgers University Press.
146

10 October 1872

FF died of cancer.
Walker, Nancy A. Fanny Fern. Twayne.
xiv

Biography

Early Life and Family

9 July 1811

Sara Payson Willis , later novelist and journalist FF , was born in Portland, Maine, USA, the fifth of nine children in her family.
Walker, Nancy A. Fanny Fern. Twayne.
xiii

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