Author
Francis Bacon is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, journals, reading notebooks, and manuscripts (1822–1846). 7 distinct works are named, most often in New-York Daily Tribune, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
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 →
Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had Francis Bacon’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“I have, for the time, laid aside De Stael and Bacon, for Martineau and Southey.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 1836
Same explicit statement documenting active prior reading of Bacon.
“do not let him expect anything of me because I have ventured on a book so profound as the Novum Organum.”
Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · March 17th, 1836
"I have ventured on a book so profound as the Novum Organum" is a first-person statement of engaging with the specific book.
“I have retained of your books a volume of Bacon, one of Plutarch, one of Ben Jonson with Underwoods, &c — you must ask me for them, if wanted, for I keep books forever.”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“I wished for two books "Bacon's Essays" and "Paleys Internal Evidences" but mother can not find them in either of the bookcases.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“I have, for the time, laid aside De Stael and Bacon, for Martineau and Southey.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Fuller names Bacon as reading she has temporarily set aside; a cross-reference to Letter 123 confirms she was reading the Novum Organum, which Herschel's Preliminary Discourse served as a commentary on.
“do not let him expect anything of me because I have ventured on a book so profound as the Novum Organum.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Bacon's letters”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (43); Box 6 (43).
“I have retained of your books a volume of Bacon, one of Plutarch, one of Ben Jonson with Underwoods, &c — you must ask me for them, if wanted, for I keep books forever.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller names "a volume of Bacon" among books she has retained from Emerson's library, and Hudspeth identified the likely edition as Bacon's “Works” (London, 1824) in ten volumes, though no specific work within Bacon's corpus is identified.
“Manifest virtues procure reputation, occult ones fortune" / Lord Bacon / quoted by R.W. E on the subject / of Demonology.”
Fuller, Margaret. "On Poesy, Love, and Dreams." Houghton Library, Harvard University; MS Am 1450.
“Licet in natura naturata lex, in natura naturante idea dicitur. / Bacon”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal November 1841." Houghton Library, Harvard University; MS Am 1086; Box 5.
Inferred Fuller cites 'Bacon' as the source of the Latin phrase 'Licet in natura naturata lex, in natura naturante idea dicitur.' The specific Bacon work is not named; the phrase echoes concepts in Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum or Novum Organum, but cannot be precisely identified without direct text comparison. Title inferred as unspecified. Fuller attributes the Latin phrase to Bacon explicitly.
Fuller cites 'Bacon' as the source of the Latin phrase 'Licet in natura naturata lex, in natura naturante idea dicitur.' The specific Bacon work is not named; the phrase echoes concepts in Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum or Novum Organum, but cannot be precisely identified without direct text comparison. Fuller attributes the Latin phrase to Bacon explicitly. The attribution to Bacon is unusual since the natura naturans/naturata terminology is more associated with Spinoza, but Fuller here copies it as 'Bacon.' Possibly a paraphrase or summary by Green (in the Vital Dynamics) attributing a concept to Bacon.
“the interpretation of Bacon upon the legends of the Syren coast.”
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
Inferred The title is inferred: Fuller paraphrases Bacon's readings of the Sirens and Orpheus without naming the work.
“Dramatica Poesis est veluti Historia spectabilis,' is his motto, taken from Bacon, who formed his taste on Shakspeare.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860. · p136
Inferred Fuller quotes Jeremy Taylor's motto, "Dramatica Poesis est veluti Historia spectabilis," and attributes it to Francis Bacon. The Latin phrase ("Dramatic poetry is, as it were, history made visible") originates in Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), the expanded Latin version of The Advancement of Learning. Fuller likely encountered the phrase in Taylor's preface but explicitly names Bacon as the source.
Fuller quotes Jeremy Taylor's motto, "Dramatica Poesis est veluti Historia spectabilis," and attributes it to Francis Bacon.
“Bacon paid by moral perversion for his premature intellectual developement.”
Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p56
Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p56; page given is to the 1869 reprint.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“I had many fine things to look at, the property of Raffaello, Pericles and a new (to me), vol. of Lord Bacon to read”
Fuller, Margaret. "Reflections: Emerson and Nature's Beauty." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086.
“Philosophiae autem objectum triplex, / Deus, natura, homo. Bacon.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook 1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (90); Box 6.
Inferred Bacon.' is attributed explicitly to Bacon within Kinmont's text. This corresponds to Bacon's De Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), Book II, which divides philosophy into divine, natural, and human philosophy. Fuller transcribes this Latin aphorism from Kinmont's text, with 'Bacon' as an explicit attribution.
Bacon.' is attributed explicitly to Bacon within Kinmont's text. Fuller transcribes this Latin aphorism from Kinmont's text, with 'Bacon' as an explicit attribution.
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“I believe I had the pleasure of making her acquainted with Chaucer, with Ben Jonson, with Herbert, Chapman, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, with Bacon, and Sir Thomas Browne.”
Inferred Margaret Fuller encountered the writings of Francis Bacon, though no specific text is identified in this instance.
“left to herself, and in her correspondence, she was much the victim of Lord Bacon's idol of the cave, or self-deceived by her own phantasms.”
Inferred Margaret Fuller's reading touches upon Francis Bacon's Novum Organum (1620), specifically referencing his concept of the "idol of the cave." This philosophical idea, which describes how individual prejudices and unique experiences can distort perception, is identified as a lens through which Fuller's intellectual struggles, both in isolation and in her correspondence, were understood.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.