"The woman writes as if the devil was in her," said Nathaniel Hawthorne (letter to William D. Ticknor, 2 February 1855) of Sara Payson Willis Parton, who was known to the world as Fanny Fern, the first American woman newspaper columnist and the highest-paid one of her day. In her nine volumes of newspaper columns and two novels, Ruth Hall (1855) and Rose Clark (1856), she wrote fervently about the rights of women, the protection of children, and the need to improve social conditions.

Until recently, however, twentieth-century critics have characterized Fern as nothing more than an extreme sentimentalist. Overlooking most of her writing, they usually point to her short stories as the objects of their derision. Consequently, they do a disservice both to her other works and also to the short stories, which deserve far greater recognition than they have yet received. Some are sentimental indeed, written to meet the demands...