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. Fanny Fern  was born Sara Willis in 1811. She was an American newspaper columnist, humorist, novelist, and author of children's books in the 1850s through the 1870s. Fern's popularity is attributed to her conversational style that struck a chord with her intellectual female readers. Some of her published works include  Ruth Hall, Fanny Ford, Rose Clark, Little Fern's for Fanny's Little Friends, The Play-Day Book, and  The New Story Book for Children.  Susan Belasco  is professor emerita of English and women’s studies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She edited Margaret Fuller’s  Summer on the Lakes  and Fanny Fern’s  Ruth Hall , and coedited several collections of essays and anthologies of American literature, including  The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, Volumes I  and  II,  and  Leaves of Grass: The Sesquicentennial Essays .