Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of the Present Time is a roman à clef by Fanny Fern, a popular 19th-century newspaper writer. Following on her meteoric rise to fame as a columnist, she signed a contract in February 1854 to write a full-length novel. She finished Ruth Hall within a few months, and it was first published in November 1854.

Fanny Fern, was an American novelist, children's writer, humorist, and newspaper columnist in the 1850s to 1870s. Her popularity has been attributed to a conversational style and sense of what mattered to her mostly middle-class female readers.