Author Background

The pseudonymous Fanny Fern (born Sara Willis Parton 1811-1872) received her education at Catherine Beecher’s Hartford Female Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut. She began writing soon after graduating, contributing articles to The Puritan Recorder, a newspaper run by her father, Nathaniel Willis (1780– 1870). As marriage was considered the main vocation available to women at this time, Fanny Fern married Charles Harrington Eldridge in 1837. They had three children, with the eldest, Mary, dying at the age of seven. A year later, Eldridge died, leaving Fanny Fern without clear means of support. Her father consequently convinced her to marry Samuel P. Farrington in 1849. Finding him to have a repulsive and jealous nature, Fanny Fern took the remarkable step of leaving her husband, leading to a somewhat scandalous divorce in 1857, and then turning to writing as a profession by which to earn her living.

Writing Career

Her writing focused on issues of immediate concern to herself as a woman, such as domesticity, women’s rights, the double standard, and prostitution. Her searing, logical, clear-eyed, and humorous satirical pieces won her a large readership, even as her irony and mockery debunked gender stereotypes. Her children’s book Little Ferns for Fanny’s Little Friends (1853) sold 100,000 copies. She followed this success with the autobiographical novel Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time (1854), a work criticizing the prevailing ideology of separate spheres that relegated women to the private sphere. Through this criticism, she made a strong case for women’s right to earn their living through work in the public sphere.

Fanny Fern exemplified the ability of women to earn their living and so gain autonomy and comparative freedom. She became the highest paid columnist in America with her Fanny Fern’s Column. She also wrote best-selling books and bought herself a Manhattan brownstone, where she lived with her third husband, James Parton, until she died of cancer in 1872.

“Male Criticism on Ladies’ Books” (1857)

Written by Fanny Fern

Copyright: Public Domain

“Courtship and marriage, servants and children, these are the great objects of a woman’s thoughts, and they necessarily form the staple topics of their writings and their conversation. We have no right to expect anything else in a woman’s book.” —N.Y. Times.

Is it in feminine novels only that courtship, marriage, servants, and children are the staple? Is not this true of all novels?—of Dickens, of Thackeray, of Bulwer and a host of others? Is it peculiar to feminine pens, most astute and liberal of critics? Would a novel be a novel if it did not treat of courtship and marriage? and if it could be so recognized, would it find readers? When I see such a narrow, snarling criticism as the above, I always say to myself, the writer is some unhappy man, who has come up without the refining influence of mother, or sister, or reputable female friends; who has divided his migratory life between boarding-houses, restaurants, and the outskirts of editorial sanctums; and who knows as much about reviewing a woman ‘s book, as I do about navigating a ship, or engineering an omnibus from the South Ferry, through Broadway, to Union Park. I think I see him writing that paragraph in a fit of spleen—of male spleen—in his small boarding-house upper chamber, by the cheerful light of a solitary candle, flickering alternately on cobwebbed walls, dusty wash-stand, begrimed bowl and pitcher, refuse cigar stumps, boot-jacks, old hats, buttonless coats, muddy trousers, and all the wretched accompaniments of solitary, selfish male existence, not to speak of his own puckered, unkissable face; perhaps, in addition his boots hurt, his cravat-bow persists in slipping under his ear for want of a pin, and a wife to pin it, (poor wretch!) or he has been refused by some pretty girl, as he deserved to be, (narrow-minded old vinegar-cruet!) or snubbed by some lady authoress; or, more trying than all to the male constitution, has had a weak cup of coffee for that morning’s breakfast.

But seriously—we have had quite enough of this shallow criticism (?) on lady-books. Whether the book which called forth the remark above quoted, was a good book or a bad one, I know not: I should be inclined to think the former from the dispraise of such a pen. Whether ladies can write novels or not, is a question I do not intend to discuss; but that some of them have no difficulty in finding either publishers or readers, is a matter of history; and that gentlemen often write over feminine signatures would seem also to argue that feminine literature is, after all, in good odor with the reading public. Granting that lady-novels are not all that they should be—is such shallow, unfair, wholesome, sneering criticism (?) the way to reform them? Would it not be better and more manly to point out a better way kindly, justly, and, above all, respectfully? or—what would be a much harder task for such critics—write a better book!

“Hints to Young Wives” (1852)

Written by Fanny Fern

Copyright: Public Domain

Shouldn’t I like to make a bon-fire of all the “Hints to Young Wives,” “Married Women’s Friend,” etc., and throw in the authors after them? I have a little neighbor who believes all they tell her is gospel truth, and lives up to it. The minute she sees her husband coming up the street, she makes for the door, as if she hadn’t another minute to live, stands in the entry with her teeth chattering in her head till he gets all his coats and mufflers, and overshoes, and what-do-you-call—‘ems off, then chases round (like a cat in a fit) after the boot-jack; warms his slippers and puts ‘em on, and dislocates her wrist carving at the table for fear it will tire him.

Poor little innocent fool! she imagines that’s the way to preserve his affection. Preserve a fiddlestick! the consequence is, he’s sick of the sight of her; snubs her when she asks him a question, and after he has eaten her good dinners takes himself off as soon as possible, bearing in mind the old proverb “that too much of a good thing is good for nothing.” Now the truth is just this, and I wish all the women on earth had but one ear in common, so that I could put this little bit of gospel into it: ——Just so long as a man isn’t quite as sure as if he knew for certain, whether nothing on earth could ever disturb your affection for him, he is your humble servant, but the very second he finds out (or thinks he does) that he has possession of every inch of your heart, and no neutral territory ——he will turn on his heel and march off whistling “Yankee Doodle!”

Now it ‘s no use to take your pocket handkerchief and go snivelling round the house with a pink nose and red eyes; not a bit of it! If you have made the interesting discovery that you were married for a sort of upper servant or housekeeper, just fill that place and no other, keep your temper, keep all his strings and buttons and straps on; and then keep him at a distance as a housekeeper should ——“thems my sentiments?” I have seen one or two men in my life who could bear to be loved (as women with a soul knows how), without being spoiled by it, or converted into a tyrant ——but they are rare birds and should be caught stuffed and handed over to Barnum! Now as the ministers say, “I’ll close with an interesting little incident that came under my observation.”

Mr. Fern came home one day when I had such a crucifying headache that I couldn‘t have told whether I was married or single, and threw an old coat into my lap to mend. Well, I tied a wet bandage over my forehead, “left all flying,” and sat down to it ——he might as well have asked me to make a new one; however I new lined the sleeves, mended the buttonholes, sewed on new buttons down the front, and all over the coat tails ——when it finally it occurred to me (I believe it was a suggestion of Satan,) that the pocket might need mending; so I turned it inside out, and what do you think I found? A love-letter from him to my dress-maker!! I dropped the coat, I dropped the work-basket, I dropped the buttons, I dropped the baby (it was a female, and I thought it just as well to put her out of future misery) and then I hopped up into a chair front of the looking-glass, and remarked to the young woman I saw there, “F-a-n-n-y F-e-r-n! if you ——are ——ever ——such ——a ——confounded fool again “ ——and I wasn ‘t.

Sources

Fern, Fanny. “Hints to Young Wives.”  Public Domain.

Fern, Fanny.  “Male Criticism on Ladies’ Books.”  Public Domain.

Kurant, Wendy.  Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution. English Open Textbooks, 2019. https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/english-textbooks/19, CCA-SA 4.0