Author

William Henry Channing(1810–1884)

William Henry Channing is documented in Fuller’s letters and published essays (1839–1848). 4 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to Caroline Sturgis, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.

Engagement: AnalyzedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Essays
Documented: 1839–1848

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 William Henry 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.

Dated
1841Moral Evil (Western Messenger)Attested
“to day looking over the books I found a number of the W. Messenger in which you write of Evil and cast out those same suggestions as in your letter to me. I read it with profound interest.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 25th Eveg [February 1841]
"I read it with profound interest" is an explicit reading statement about the specific Western Messenger piece.

In Fuller’s words

“Will you, in addition to all other favors, find out whether W. H. Channing has lost his little daughter. There were verses in the W. Messenger, that seemed so, yet would he have put them there.”

"The Child Asleep," in Western Messenger, vol. 6: 273 · Letter to Caroline Sturgis · 1839

When Fuller engaged with William Henry Channing

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist2records

V. New York1record

VI. Europe2records

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Channing in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

1839—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p50

read

“Will you, in addition to all other favors, find out whether W. H. Channing has lost his little daughter. There were verses in the W.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Inferred Fuller queries Sturgis about whether William Henry Channing had lost his daughter, having read verses in the Western Messenger that prompted this inference; Hudspeth identified the poem as "The Child Asleep" (signed 'W.H.C.'), published in vol. 6 (February 1839): 273.

1841—

Letter to William H. Channing

p203

analyzed · read

“to day looking over the books I found a number of the W. Messenger in which you write of Evil and cast out those same suggestions as in your letter to me. I read it with profound interest.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Hudspeth identified the reference: 'Moral Evil,' Western Messenger 6 (March 1839):333-38, by William Henry Channing.

1844—

Letter to Mary Rotch

p169

analyzed · read

“You take 'The Present,' I suppose, but cannot expect you will be pleased by William's tendency to pledges and plans.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

1847—

Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . VII.

“Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . VII.”

mentioned

“None of them compare in the symmetrical arrangement of extempore discourse or in pure eloquence and communication of spiritual beauty with Channing”

Fuller, Margaret. "Things and Thoughts in Europe . . . VII." New-York Daily Tribune, 5 January 1847. · 5 January 1847

1848—

Letter to Elizabeth De Windt Cranch

p65

mentioned

“W. Channing has finished his life of his uncle; it is published this month.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Hudspeth identified the book was published on 15 May 1848 and had already sold 1,000 copies by that date.