Author
John F. W. Herschel is documented in Fuller’s letters (1836–1837). One work is named, most often in Letter to Unknown, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.
Harvard College Library loan
Charged out of Gore Hall on the card of Richard Frederick Fuller, Margaret's brother and then a Harvard senior; women could not borrow in their own name. Household access, not proof of her reading — not counted toward engagements. The full ledger →
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 John F. W. Herschel’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 finished Herschel, and really believe I am a little wiser.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 1836
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re418 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-03 l.6874-6876, 6920-6921, dated March 17 1836; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. Explicit 'I have finished Herschel.'
“I think Herschel will be very valuable to me, from the slight glance I have taken of it, and I thank Mr. F.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 17 March 1836
Explicit 'the slight glance I have taken of it' documents direct engagement with the text.
“I think Herschel will be very valuable to me, from the slight glance I have taken of it, and I thank Mr. F.; but do not let him expect anything of me because I have ventured on a book so profound as the Novum Organum.”
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 finished Herschel, and really believe I am a little wiser.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Hudspeth's notes confirm this work served as commentary on Bacon's Novum Organum.
“I think Herschel will be very valuable to me, from the slight glance I have taken of it, and I thank Mr.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“When Herschel writes his Introduction to Natural Philosophy, I cannot test all he says, but I cannot err about his fairness, his manliness, and wide range of knowledge.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Hudspeth identified the work as A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830/1831) by John Frederick William Herschel; Fuller's title is her own paraphrase.
Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.
“I think Herschel will be very valuable to me" "I have finished Herschel”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.