Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time is a roman à clef by Fanny Fern (pen name of Sara Payson Willis), a popular 19th-century newspaper writer.

The autobiographical novel can be divided into three phases: Ruth's happy marriage, impoverished widowhood, and rise to fame and financial independence as a newspaper columnist.

There is no love lost between Ruth and her father, who has plenty of money but begrudges her every penny; and although she adores her talented older brother, Hyacinth.

In the last scene, she visits her husband's grave and looks sadly at the space reserved for her at his side, then leaves the cemetery, thinking of the good things life might still have in store.

Ruth Hall was Fern's first novel; her previous writings were short newspaper editorials written in a brisk conversational style, usually under intense deadline pressure.

This angry, defiant Ruth ceases to be the passive object of the narrator's pity and steps to the center of the action, a full-fledged protagonist.

Fanny Fern, and her fictional counterpart Ruth Hall are used in this novel as a case study to display a new capitalistic need for women's literary talents during the stage of high supply and demand throughout the 1850s.

Through the publication of Fanny Fern's literature, she encourages publishers to end trade courtesy, and allow open bidding for greater success.

With this newfound success, Fanny Fern uses her own professional authorship as an opportunity to challenge the 19th century view of the ideal woman, break free of typical, domestic spheres, and lead women towards independence.

He put together a book called The life and beauties of Fanny Fern which consisted of his former star contributor's most satirical pieces, together with an essay that not only impugned her character, but revealed her true identity to the public.

Despite his notorious comment about a "damned mob of scribbling women", Nathaniel Hawthorne admired the novel and in 1855 confided to his publisher:In my last, I recollect, I bestowed some vituperation on female authors.

Generally women write like emasculated men, and are only distinguished from male authors by a greater feebleness and folly; but when they throw off the restraints of decency, and come before the public stark naked, as it were—then their books are sure to possess character and value.

[citation needed] The novel's depiction of a Victorian-era woman who earns financial independence has made it a favorite with contemporary feminist literary scholars.

In this case, however, the happy marriage is only a prologue; it is also a mixed blessing, bringing with it the sorrow of a child's death, along with a truly awful set of in-laws who must always be placated and appeased.

Here, the consummation of the heroine's struggle is neither marriage nor death, but the moment when Ruth, having earned a small fortune with her first book, reclaims Katy and at long last tells her mother-in-law what she really thinks of her.

According to Joyce Warren in Stephen Hartnett's article, "The Cheerful Brutality of Capitalism," Fanny Fern's depiction of Ruth Hall's financial success helped 19th century women transcend gender restrictions, despite social norms.

[10] Jenniffer Harris suggests that Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall is not a typical novel which simply illustrates the story of a woman and her marriage, but rather an eventual widow who manages to gain economic independence without having to depend on a man or anyone else.

Ross points out that the character Ruth Hall experiences this first hand at the end of the novel, claiming that Fanny Fern tried to bring this aspect of exposure to light to her reading audiences.

[12] In her article, "Renovating Domesticity in Ruth Hall", Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Our Nig, Jennifer Larson emphasizes the negative impacts that the domestic discourse had on women and through the novels, Ruth Hall, Incident Life of A Slave Girl and Our Nig, she is able to show how some women could overcome the oppression that they were left in after their husband's failure.

Although trade courtesy worked out of respect, Ruth Hall encouraged publishers to overlook this act by bidding for authors like her to write for them.

Dowling also discusses how Fern used “‘sentimental imagery and language patterning’ as a way of disguising her main purpose of evolving Ruth into ‘self definition and verbal power.

In Jennifer Harris’ article, Marketplace Transactions and Sentimental Currencies in Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall, she elaborates on the ideology of women being distanced from the economic world and kept in the domestic scene.

Instead of improving her living conditions through a traditional, dependent remarriage, after the death of her husband and the abandonment of her in-laws and father, she exits domesticity and enters the patriarchal marketplace, negotiates her capital worth, and acquires independent value.