Author
Benjamin Disraeli is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, published essays, journals, and manuscripts (1833–1845). 9 distinct works are named, most often in Story Books for the Hot Weather., and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
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 Benjamin Disraeli’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“thinking through Alroy which I have been reading”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [30? June 1833]
Explicit 'Alroy which I have been reading.'
“read myself to sleep with chapters out of Vivian Grey, and Maryatt's novels”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton 4th March 183g- [1839]
Explicit 'read myself to sleep with chapters out of Vivian Grey.'
“Henrietta Temple' Mr. Willis, with his usual justness of perception, has praised, as containing a collection of the best love-letters ever written; and which show that excellence, signal and singular among the literary tribe, of which D'Israeli never fails, of daring to write a thing down exactly as it rises in his mind.”
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 have been sitting in the piazza hearing it rustle the vines against the Moon's benignant face and thinking through Alroy which I have been reading— I lived it all through and set it to musick in my soul.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Vol. I: 1817-1838. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“In Vivian Grey our author illumined (his worst maligners will confess it) he illumined many abuses, many secret sufferings with rays more strong and steady than any one before had dared to cast upon them.”
“In the young Duke we meet him again; his genius more controlled, but not crushed.”
“Contarini Fleming _ Again he strives boldly but is still baffled. From a factitious state of being, he draws rules which are to model men into the true.”
“Alroy. An excellent poem. The plan is well conceived, the characters happily drawn parts most eloquent but the style is faulty”
“Iskander with many fine thoughts is but a gracefully written tale.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1833–1834." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (4); Box 5 (83).
“never _ never shall we again see any like those of Vivian Grey”
Title is explicit through naming; author identified through title.
“My childhood was full of presentiments like that of Contarini Fleming, but I differ from the author who thinks himself a natural "human"… Many observations in this book give me new light upon myself”
Fuller, Margaret. "Fragmentary Reading Notes and Autobiographical Reflections." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
“Activity of mind, accuracy in processes, constant looking for principles, and search after the good and beautiful, "that's the ground I go upon" as Mr S says in Vivian Gray”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Fuller names Benjamin Disraeli's novel Vivian Grey explicitly and quotes a line from a character (identified in Hudspeth's notes) to illustrate her pedagogical philosophy.
“After I went to bed I would read myself to sleep with chapters out of Vivian Grey, and Maryatt's novels, and I read the debates in Congress.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“I admire this story for the _savoir faire_, the nonchalance, the Vivian Greyism of Indian life.”
Fuller, Margaret. Summer on the Lakes, in 1843. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1844.
Inferred Fuller coins the term 'Vivian Greyism' to characterize the breezy social savoir faire and nonchalance of Muckwa's behavior ? by allusion to the protagonist of Disraeli's first novel, Vivian Grey, whose hero is known for his effortless social manipulation and cool self-possession.
“The 'Young Duke' was full of brilliant sketches, and showed a soul struggling, blinded by the gaudy mists of fashion, for realities.”
“The 'Wondrous Tale of Alroy' showed great power of conception, though in execution it is a failure.”
Fuller, Margaret. Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Edited by Arthur B. Fuller. Boston: Brown, Taggard and Chase, 1860.
“The English novelist, D'Israeli, has, in his novel of the "Young Duke," made a man of the most depraved stock be redeemed by a woman who despises him when he has only the brilliant mask of fortune and beauty”
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
“An English Jew, very free from prejudice, D’Israeli, has had the courage, in a spirited writing that under the title “Geist des Judenthums,” Spirit of Jewry, is well known in Germany, to accuse the stiffness of the Jews and their iron laws.”
Fuller, Margaret. "The Modern Jews." New-York Daily Tribune, 21 April 1845. · 21 April 1845
“On such days it was well, we think, to read 'Sybil, or the Two Worlds.' We have always felt great interest in D'Israeli.”
Also reprinted in Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Counted once, at its first appearance.
“In 'Vivian Grey,' the young D'Israeli, an educated Englishman, but with the blood of sunnier climes glowing and careering in his veins, gave us the very flower and essence of factitious life.”
Also reprinted in Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Counted once, at its first appearance.
“Since then, D’Israeli has never written any thing to be compared with this first jet of the fountain of his mind in the sunlight of morning. ‘The Young Duke’ was full of brilliant sketches”
“The Wondrous Tale of Alroy’ showed great power in conception, though, in execution, it is a failure.”
“Henrietta Temple' Mr.”
Also reprinted in Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Counted once, at its first appearance.
“Coningsby' was full of talent, yet its chief interest lay in this aspiration after reality, and the rich materials taken from contemporary life.”
Also reprinted in Life Without and Life Within; or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and Poems. Counted once, at its first appearance.
Fuller, Margaret. "Story Books for the Hot Weather." New-York Daily Tribune, 20 June 1845.