Fanny Fern 1811-1872

Fanny Fern (1811-1872) real name Sarah Willis was born in Portland, Maine, America to Nathaniel Willis (a newspaper owner) and Hannah Parker.

Sarah first married Charles Harrington, a banker and they had three children. Her eldest daughter died at about age six in 1845 of meningitis and shortly afterward her husband died of typhoid fever leaving her, without support from her family, nearly destitute. She remarried in 1849 to Samuel Farrington, a merchant, but that didn't work out and they divorced two years later.

She published her first article 'The Governess' in 1851 in the ' Olive Branch', a weekly paper published in Boston, Massachusetts, America, followed by several short satirical pieces. Shortly afterwards she began using the pen name 'Fanny Fern'. With no regular income and two children to support she started writing in earnest; her brother (a magazine owner) refused to publish them claiming they would not have any appeal outside of Boston but other newspapers and periodicals in New York and elsewhere outside of Boston did begin printing them and in 1852 she became the first woman to have a regular column when publisher 'Oliver Dyer' hired her to write exclusively for his New York newspaper, the 'Musical World and Times'. The following year Oliver Dyer helped her find a publisher for her first two books; and from there she went on to publish a number of children's stories for next two decades.

When he was young my great-great grandfather, George Burgess (1829-1905) lived in America from about 1845 to 1857 and during that time he saved five of the newspaper articles by Fanny fern in his Victorian Scrapbook containing over 500 Victorian Era newspaper articles from Britain and America.

Below is a review of each of these newspaper articles and a link to where they can be read in full.