ABSTRACT
Fanny Fern began writing for the Olive Branch in June 1851 and published more than one dozen articles there before the year's end. From the start, her public identity was unsettled: before resolving on 'Fanny Fern', she tried several pseudonyms such as 'Tabitha' and 'Olivia Branch'. Her distinctive style made her an immediate success among both male and female readers, some of whom wrote letters responding to her and her columns. Some letter writers offered enthusiastic praise or criticism for Fern's sentimental and satirical sketches portraying women's concerns, but many speculated about the 'real' identity of the writer whose blunt style challenged conventions of women's writing. In 1852, the Olive Branch published several of these inquiries and some of Fern's letters in response. The result is an extraordinary set of published correspondence that reveals much about the influence of epistolarity in Fern's early career. According to Janet Gurkin Altman, 'the epistolary experience' is 'a reciprocal one'.
