| This dissertation project is a historical novel based on the life and works of nineteenth-century American novelist, journalist and feminist, Fanny Fern. Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil seeks to make vivid the life of Fanny Fern, and the literary, social, and political arenas of the era. The book covers Fanny Fern's life (1811-1872), but concentrates on the 1850s and 1860s when her literary career became established and the United States, due to industrialization, civil tensions, and a developing literary aesthetic, was in a state of flux. Fanny Fern's weekly editorials on the pages of The New York Ledger over a period of about twenty years help to chronicle the myriad of controversial issues of her era while her novels, and the critical response to them, both in her day and through subsequent eras, make clear how America's literary tradition began to and continues to define itself. This draft strives for historical accuracy, not only regarding Fanny Fern and the events of her life, but in regard to other historical figures of her time. Nevertheless, assuming there is no accurate representation of history, this work also serves to question not only the facts of history but also the systems by which such facts are constructed, connected and rendered coherent, as it seeks to represent one version of Fanny Fern and the mid-nineteenth-century United States. |
