Author
Thomas Babington Macaulay is documented in Fuller’s letters and reading notebooks (1836–1850). 2 distinct works are named, most often in Letter to William Wetmore Story, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.
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 Thomas Babington Macaulay’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 am just reading Macaulay's new history which seems even more brilliant and fascinating than his previous writings.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Florence. 2nd Dec. 1849 (letter dateline); "I am just reading Macaulay's new history"
"I am just reading Macaulay's new history" is an explicit present-tense reading statement.
“I have felt like reading more than for some years past, have read Macaulay's History of the James 2nd Period, Louis Blanc's Ten Years, and many books of that class”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Florence 15th Feb 1850 (letter dateline); 'have read...this winter'
Explicit statement 'have read Macaulay's History of the James 2nd Period'.
“I am just reading Macaulay's new history which seems even more brilliant and fascinating than his previous writings. He says James II was unable to get beyond this one idea 'My father made concessions and was beheaded therefore the only safe way for me to do is to make no concessions.”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“Specimens of that which we conceive to have been the great characteristic of Demosthenes [...] Whatever was valuable in the compositions of Sir James Mackintosh [...] His mind was a vast magazine, admirably arranged [...] Macaulay.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook: Bouquet, 1836–1837." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (43); Box 6 (43).
“I am just reading Macaulay's new history which seems even more brilliant and fascinating than his previous writings.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. V. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.
“I have felt like reading more than for some years past, have read Macaulay's History of the James 2nd Period, Louis Blanc's Ten Years, and many books of that class, where were some facts I wanted.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. VI. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.