WHO WAS FANNY FERN?
It was at this point Sara decided to try to write for a living and soon became quite successful in both America and England. In 1855, she joined the New York Ledger as a weekly columnist at the then astounding salary of $100 per week with a readership of nearly 500,000. The same year, her loosely autobiographical novel, Ruth Hall, was published. In 1856, a second novel, Rose Clark, was not as well received and she married biographer James Parton, her junior. In 1868, she and Jane Croly, formed Sorosis, one of the first women's clubs in America. After a six-year battle with cancer, she died in New York City in 1872. She was buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sara's witty and insightful comments present a social history of American home life of the early Victorian era.
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