Author
William Ellery Channing is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, journals, and manuscripts (1835–1848). 4 distinct works are named, most often in The Excellence of Goodness. A Sermon . . ., 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 William Ellery Channing’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“reading your journals and Ellery's book, and talking with you in the study”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Sunday 16th Oct [1842]
Explicit 'reading your journals and Ellery's book'.
“William addressed them in the morning on the destiny of the Earth, and then I read aloud Ellery's poem "The Earth".”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers) · Night preceding New year's day 1844
Explicit statement: 'then I read aloud Ellery's poem The Earth'.
“Two wise and candid thinkers,–the Scotchman, Kinment, prematurely lost to this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and the late Dr. Channing,—both thought that the African Race had in them a peculiar element, which, if it could be assimilated with those imported among us from Europe, would give to genius a development, and to the energies of character a balance and harmony beyond what has been seen heretofore in the history of the world.”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“What says Col. Storrow to the Faneuil hall resolutions, to the Boston Mob, and Dr Channing's new book on slavery.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“His poems have several times suggested her to my mind, and the possibility flitted across my mind both when she went to the West and now when she stopped at Cincinnati.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“I read aloud Ellery's poem "The Earth".”
Fuller, Margaret. "Brook Farm, New Year's Eve." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 3, Folder: 135.
“Our venerated friend, Dr.”
Fuller, Margaret. "First of August, 1845." New-York Daily Tribune, 1 August 1845. · 1 August 1845
“Two wise and candid thinkers,–the Scotchman, Kinment, prematurely lost to this country, of which he was so faithful and generous a student, and the late Dr.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass . . ." New-York Daily Tribune, 10 June 1845. · 10 June 1845
“The late Dr. Channing, the greatest man who has yet arisen among them, was truly a liberal Christian.”
“He had preached much of “the dignity of human nature,” and he showed by his tolerance of its varied manifestations and modes of growth, that he deeply believed what he preached.”
Fuller, Margaret. "The Excellence of Goodness. A Sermon . . ." New-York Daily Tribune, 26 February 1845.
“These are the names of Channing and of Emerson. Dr. Channing had several leading thoughts which correspond with the wants of his time, and have made him in it a father of thought.”
Fuller, Margaret. "American Literature." New-York Daily Tribune, 23 September 1846. · 23 September 1846
“Dr. Channing had several leading thoughts which corresponded with the wants of his time, and have made him in it a father of thought.”
Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p304
Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p304; page given is to the 1869 reprint.
“I never saw Ellery's book; we see nothing here that is not Italian; hardly a newspaper; but I hear it is very much liked.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
Inferred Fuller mentions Ellery Channing's book, explicitly stating she has not read it but has heard it is "very much liked." Hudspeth identified it as probably William Ellery Channing's Conversations in Rome: Between an Artist, a Catholic, and a Critic.
“In a letter to Mr. Phillips, the dear friend of our revered Dr. Channing, I asked him if he remembered what recumbent statue it was of which Dr. Channing was wont to speak”
Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . XX." New-York Daily Tribune, 7 February 1848. · 7 February 1848
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“Just imagine Demetrius reading Channing on Bonaparte in the temple of Minerva.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1833–1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (83); Box 5 (83).
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“CHANNING ON SLAVERY. 'This is a noble work. So refreshing its calm, benign atmosphere, after the pestilence-bringing gales of the day.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
Inferred Margaret Fuller engaged critically with William Ellery Channing's 1835 work, Slavery, deeming it 'a noble work' and praising its 'calm, benign atmosphere.' This significant abolitionist text, published in Boston, is identified by Fuller’s section heading in the OCR and her extended commentary.