Ruth Hall is an autobiographical novel by Fanny Fern, telling her life story overlaid with a façade of fiction. Ruth Hall is a fictionalized version of Fanny Fern and one of Ruth's poignant characteristics, and one of the novel's main themes, is her quest for love. 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.