Author
Emerson occupies a unique place in the catalogue: he is both Fuller’s closest intellectual colleague and an author she read critically. The letters are not mentions — they are a decade of intellectual conversation conducted in writing. She read Nature for the first time alone, deliberately, in the woods, and found that reading it without hearing his voice first allowed her to understand it differently. Essays: Second Series she read in the mountains — “in the neighborhood of hawks and such like” — and sent him an assessment both admiring and precise: “In expression it seems far more adequate than the former volume, has more glow, more fusion. Two or three cavils I should make, but will not, till I have read it yet again.”
This page records Fuller reading Emerson’s work. The personal friendship is acknowledged but is not the subject; the works list records only her engagement with his writing.
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 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“Thank you for the accompanying papers. The Ghosts spoke very lifelike to me who understand the language of Hades.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Jamaica Plains June 3d 1839
Direct reaction to specific content just received and read ('The Ghosts spoke very lifelike to me').
“we read all Mr. E's letters to both of us this summer. They make a volume, and passages are finer than any thing he has published.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Sunday 8th Novr [184o]
"we read all Mr. E's letters to both of us this summer" is an explicit reading statement.
“I went into the woods and read a little book called "Nature" through for the first time.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 12th April 1840, 'Yesterday was the first day of spring'
"I went into the woods and read a little book called 'Nature' through for the first time" is an explicit, dated reading statement.
1836–1839
Discovery and early reading — Nature read alone; The Divinity School Address and the first Essays; the intellectual alliance forming.
1840–1844
Dial years and peak engagement — co-editing The Dial creates constant literary exchange; Essays: First and Second Series both analyzed.
1845–1850
Distance and continuity — Fuller in New York, then Italy; Emerson’s Poems and later essays still engaged from abroad.
“I went into the woods and read a little book called “Nature” through for the first time. Then I caught the melody; now I see the harmony.”
“Your book I have read quite through, some of it in the neighborhood of hawks and such like... It will be a companion through my life. In expression it seems far more adequate than the former volume, has more glow, more fusion.”
“At the distance of three years this volume follows the first series of Essays, which have already made to themselves a circle of readers...”
Analyzed in depth
Further works
Further works documented in the catalogue
Transcribed from originals at Houghton Library, Harvard, and the Boston Public Library. The manuscripts are not supplementary — they are the evidence.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“I thank you much for "Nature." I hear much conversation about it that amuses me. I have it already.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Hudspeth identified while Fuller did not read the entire work until 1840, Emerson had apparently read it aloud to her.
“Each in all. / Little thinks in the field yon red cloaked clown / Of thee from the hill top looking down [...] All are needed by each one; / Nothing is fair or good alone.”
Inferred The poem is not titled in the notebook; the later pencil addition identifies Emerson as author. Title marked Inferred because the notebook provides only 'Each in all' and publication was later.
The poem is not titled in the notebook; the later pencil addition identifies Emerson as author. The poem is written in the notebook [not in SMF hand].
“Let me go where'er I will / I hear a sky-born music still / It rounds from all things old / It sounds from all things young [...] But in the mud and scum of things / There's alway, alway something sings.”
Inferred Two poems follow the 'Each in All' poem in the notebook, labeled [not in SMF hand], without title or attribution. This untitled poem immediately follows Emerson's 'Each in All') and is also written not in SMF hand. The poem begins 'Let me go where'er I will / I hear a sky-born music still' and is consistent with Emerson's early poem 'Music' (later published in Poems, 1847, as 'Music').
Two poems follow the 'Each in All' poem in the notebook, labeled [not in SMF hand], without title or attribution. This untitled poem immediately follows Emerson's 'Each in All') and is also written not in SMF hand.
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (43); Box 6 (43).
“I will bestow on you two verses written by a better person than myself— See if you think them pretty. The title is Compensation. Why should I keep holiday / When other men have none?”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“send me your two lectures on Holiness and Heroism to read while in Boston. Let me have these two lectures to read at any rate, whether you come or no.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Fuller asks Emerson to send his manuscript lectures "on Holiness and Heroism," identified by Hudspeth as the eighth and ninth lectures of Emerson's "Human Culture" series (1837–38).
“The address is to be printed— I did not go down to hear.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Fuller mentions "the address" as something "to be printed," which Hudspeth identified as Emerson's Divinity School Address, delivered in July 1838 and published in August 1838 by James Munroe.
“I had excellent times at home, with my own soul, and excellent times with Mr Emerson, seeing his shine out through all this fog.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Fuller refers to "all this fog" and "dirt is being thrown at them," which Hudspeth identified as comments on the controversy following Emerson's Divinity School Address of July 1838, which sparked fierce debate among Boston Unitarians.
“Tell, too, about Mr E's Protest.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller alludes to Emerson's lecture "Protest," the sixth in his "Human Life" series delivered in Boston in 1838–39, as Hudspeth identified; she missed the lecture while ill at Groton and asked a friend for news of it, demonstrating her engagement with the intellectual event through her circle.
“Thank you for the accompanying papers. The Ghosts spoke very lifelike to me who understand the language of Hades.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller nicknames Emerson's manuscript lecture "The Ghosts," an allusion to its demonology subject matter; as Hudspeth identified as possibly Emerson's "Demonology," the final lecture of his 1839 "Human Life" course.
“I went into the woods and read a little book called "Nature" through for the first time.”
“Meseems you ought to know with what delight the "Woodnotes" have been heard!”
“I sent "Nature," (and lamented I had not your book proper for the occasion) John Dwight's volume and "the Dial.”
“I wrote to you last night, and today the lines about your Essay seem so dull, so cold, and so impertinent withal that I have a mind to burn the paper”
Hudspeth identified this as a draft of either 'Thoughts on Art,' published in Dial 1 (January 1841): 367-78, or the essay 'Art,' the final essay in Emerson's Essays: First Series (1841).
“I shall depend on your Essay and hope to receive it certainly on Wednesday”
Hudspeth (fn. 1) identifies this as the same essay context as Letter 288: either 'Thoughts on Art,' Dial 1 (January 1841):367-78, or the essay 'Art' in Essays: First Series (1841).
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“W.E on art / p 7 - If you see a drawing - once, give it your blessing you will never see it again.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal 1840." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (85); Box 5 (85).
Inferred Fuller cites 'W.E on art / p 7' and 'p 8' and quotes observations about looking at drawings and seeing the moon — this matches Emerson's essay 'Thoughts on Art,' published in The Dial, January 1841, though written in late 1840. Fuller as Dial editor would have seen it in manuscript. W.E.' is Waldo Emerson (Ralph Waldo Emerson).
“I went last week to hear Mr E. lecture on Reform. I had made an extract from this for you, but he has now resolved to publish it in the Dial.”
Hudspeth identified: the lecture was published in Dial 1 (April 1841):523-38.
“His book, also, is in press.”
Inferred Hudspeth identified 'His book' as Emerson's Essays: First Series, sent to publisher on 1 January 1841 and published by James Munroe on 20 March 1841.
“Read these side by side with Waldo's paragraphs, and say is it not deeper and true to live than to think. Sometimes I seem quite distant and bright as if with central knowledge.”
Inferred Fuller is reading and comparing Emerson's prose to the Günderrode letters, and explicitly comments: 'Yet is his a noble speech.
“The verse / Have I a lover / Who is noble and free / I would he were nobler / Than to love me. / does not come home to me though this does,”
Inferred Hudspeth identified the verse 'Have I a lover / Who is noble and free / I would he were nobler / Than to love me' as from Emerson's 'The Sphinx,' first published in Dial I (January 1841): 348-50. She quotes four lines from the poem directly and contrasts this passage with the Lovelace lines that follow — saying the Emerson verse 'does not come home to me.'
Hudspeth identified the verse 'Have I a lover / Who is noble and free / I would he were nobler / Than to love me' as from Emerson's 'The Sphinx,' first published in Dial I (January 1841): 348-50.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“That part of your article which contains the paragraph on Character. Richard will bring it back to me, after you have put in the wedge.”
Fuller is reviewing and commenting on Emerson's essay 'Walter Savage Landor' (identified in Hudspeth as Dial 2 [October 1841]:262–71).
“A Martineau letter containing her raptures about your book.”
Hudspeth fn 6 quotes Harriet Martineau's letter to Fuller (9 August, MH), in which Martineau calls Emerson's Essays 'a gem set in the brow of your nation.' Fuller transmits the letter to Emerson.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“Have I a lover Who is noble and free, I would he were nobler Than to love me,”
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 Though dated October 1840, the entry includes a direct quotation of lines from the work—'Have I a lover / Who is noble and free, / I would he were nobler / Than to love me'—suggesting either prior manuscript circulation among their circle or a later editorial arrangement of the journal.