Author

John Gibson Lockhart(1794–1854)

John Gibson Lockhart is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, reading notebooks, and manuscripts (1825–1849). 5 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to Caroline Sturgis, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement: ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Books · Notebooks · Manuscripts
Documented: 1825–1849

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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 John Gibson Lockhart’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
1826Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and RomanticAttested
“and Castilian ballads, with great delight.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Cambridge, 14 May 1826
Continuation of the same explicit studying statement naming Castilian ballads.

In Fuller’s words

“His mind had made a rapid stride; It / had been forced on itself, and he followed no / longer like a boy, but understood like a man … every page on which vivid intellect had stamped its image, no matter what the style or the theme transformed, with the rapidity and brightness of lightning, a new energy impulse and stimulus to his understanding. / Reginald Dalton. Book fourth.”

Reginald Dalton · Reading Notebook 1825–1827 · 1825

When Fuller engaged with John Gibson Lockhart

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence4records

III. Self-Directed1record

IV. Transcendentalist2records

V. New York1record

VI. Europe1record

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

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

Lockhart in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1825—

Reading Notebook 1825–1827

pp. 76

excerpted · quoted · readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)

“His mind had made a rapid stride; It / had been forced on itself, and he followed no / longer like a boy, but understood like a man … every page on which vivid intellect had stamped its image, no matter what the style or the theme transformed, with the rapidity and brightness of lightning, a new energy impulse and stimulus to his understanding.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Reading Notebook 1825–1827." Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Attributed 'Reginald Dalton.

1826—

Letter to Susan Prescott

p154

read

“I am studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Castilian ballads, with great delight.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Fuller refers to "Castilian ballads"; Hudspeth identified this as probably John Gibson Lockhart's Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Romantic.

The attribution is marked probable because Hudspeth himself uses the qualifier "probably."

1829—

Letter to George T. Davis

p159

read

“her head bent over "Reginald Dalton" which she has just begun and which makes her laugh every three moments”

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

Hudspeth identified that John Gibson Lockhart published Reginald Dalton in 1823.

1831—

Letter to Unknown

p173

analyzed · read

“I found much amusement in leading him to sketch the scenes and persons which Lockhart portrays in such glowing colors, and which he, too, has seen with the eye of taste, but how different!”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Inferred Fuller names Lockhart and draws out a conversation with Greenwood about the "scenes and persons which Lockhart portrays in such glowing colors." Hudspeth identified John Gibson Lockhart (1794–1854), Scott's son-in-law, as author of four novels likely in mind: Valerius (1821), Adam Blair (1822), Reginald Dalton (1823), and Matthew Wald (1824).

1833—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p205

analyzed · read

“I think your descriptions vie with Peter Lockhart's though I dont love paying such compliments.”

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

Inferred Fuller compares Clarke's descriptions of paintings to 'Peter Lockhart's' vivid character portraits, referring to John Gibson Lockhart's Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk. Hudspeth identified the reference by connecting the character name 'Peter' with the author's surname 'Lockhart.'

Hudspeth identified the reference by connecting the character name 'Peter' with the author's surname 'Lockhart.'

1837—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p296

analyzed · read2 selected passages

“or, if my memory play me true, than Lockhart's "Valerias,”

“or among fictions Lockhart's "Reginald Dalton" Hope's "Anastasius" or Beckford's "Caliph Vathek" are very good.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

p174-175

excerpted · quoted · read

“THE WEDDING OF THE LADY THERESA." FROM LOCKHART'S SPANISH BALLADS. / "'Twas when the fifth Alphonso in Leon held his sway...”

Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.

Appendix C: Explicitly attributed 'FROM LOCKHART'S SPANISH BALLADS'; the poem 'The Wedding of the Lady Theresa' given in full. Appendix C. Explicitly attributed to Lockhart's Spanish Ballads (1823).

1849—

Letter to Emelyn Story

p188

analyzed

“Strange that the mind, that very fiery particle, could let itself be snuffed out by an article.' [In context of discussion of Keats's reputation damaged by a hostile article]”

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

Inferred Fuller invokes the critical tradition surrounding Keats's death through Byron's famous lines about Keats being "kill'd off by one critique," alluding implicitly to John Gibson Lockhart's "Cockney School of Poetry" published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.

Undated

Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

n.d.—

Mostly Extracts

pp46–50

excerpted · quoted · readManuscript page

“Count Arnaldos.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Mostly Extracts." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (89); Box 5 (89).

Fuller explicitly attributes the work to 'Lockhart's translations from a Spanish Cancionero.'

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Passages surviving only in the posthumous Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, compiled by Emerson, Channing, and Clarke.

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p136

read

“I found much amusement in leading him to sketch the scenes and persons which Lockhart portrays in such glowing colours, and which he, too, has seen with the eye of taste, but how different!”

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 engages with John Gibson Lockhart's Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott (1837-1838), observing how her companion" [made] much amusement in leading him to sketch the scenes and persons which Lockhart portrays in such glowing colours," though "how different!" Fuller explicitly names Lockhart, and while the Scott biography is the most probable text, an earlier work by Lockhart is also considered given the dated context of Fuller's reflection.