“I agree Mr Alcott's sayings read well.”
Author
Amos Bronson Alcott(1799–1888)
Amos Bronson Alcott is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, and journals (1840–1845). 5 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
- Engagement
- AnalyzedReadMentioned
- Present in
- Letters · Books · Journals
- Documented
- 1840–1845
Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →
Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →
Confirmed reading
Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Amos Bronson Alcott’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
- Dated
- 1837JournalsAttested
“I have passed many hours during the last week in the company of your Journals, and would willingly pass many more in the same way.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton 18th May 1837.
Explicit 'I have passed many hours during the last week in the company of your Journals.'
In Fuller’s words
“The letter from Fruitlands made me laugh till I cried it contrasted so whimsically with all I had been seeing and feeling in this region, where strong instincts and imperative necessities come upon you like the swoop of the hawk.”
When Fuller engaged with Amos Bronson Alcott
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Alcott in Fuller’s reading world
Documentary evidence
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
1840—
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson
p151analyzed · read2 selected passages
“Shall have the proofs of 'Orphic sayings' sent to Mr A. but wish him to be sure and return them next day.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
1842—
Journal Fragments, 1842
p13analyzed · read
“Reading Mr Alcott's letters makes me ache, it is miserable to see his boyish infatuation and his swelling vanity.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal Fragments, 1842." Margaret Fuller Family Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
1843—
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson
p137analyzed · read
“The letter from Fruitlands made me laugh till I cried it contrasted so whimsically with all I had been seeing and feeling in this region, where strong instincts and imperative necessities come upon you like the swoop of the hawk.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Fuller calls it "the letter from Fruitlands"; Hudspeth identified this as a joint "communication" from Alcott and Lane.
1845—
Woman in the Nineteenth Century
The Dial I.1 (1840) and I.3 (1841)analyzed · read
“calling their prose 'Orphic sayings' and verse 'Orphics.' We wish we could add that they have shown that musical apprehension of nature which entitled them so to do, but their attempts are frigid, though sometimes grand”
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
Inferred Fuller refers without naming Alcott to American writers who call their prose 'Orphic sayings' and their verse 'Orphics' — an unmistakable allusion to A. Bronson Alcott's 'Orphic Sayings,' published in the first issue of The Dial (July 1840, 50 sayings) and the third issue (January 1841, 50 more sayings). Alcott's contributions were the most ridiculed in the journal, widely mocked as unintelligible.