Author

John Neal(1793–1876)

John Neal is documented in Fuller’s letters (1830). No work is named in the surviving passages, all in Letter to George T. Davis, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “analyzed”.

Engagement: AnalyzedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters
Documented: 1830

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 →

In Fuller’s words

“I felt charmed by the image presented by Neal in Miller's obituary; ie Miller seeing his life for months, the substance of his existence, his present Soul whelmed in the vasty deep when others but wondered at his grief in loving his thick logbook.”

Letter to George T. Davis · 1830

When Fuller engaged with John Neal

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence1record

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

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

Documentary evidence

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

1830—

Letter to George T. Davis

p162

analyzed · read2 selected passages

“I felt charmed by the image presented by Neal in Miller's obituary; ie Miller seeing his life for months, the substance of his existence, his present Soul whelmed in the vasty deep when others but wondered at his grief in loving his thick logbook.”

Inferred Fuller reads John Neal's obituary of James William Miller in The Yankee; and Boston Literary Gazette (December 1829) and feels "charmed by the image presented by Neal." The obituary directly prompts her own journal-keeping: "I thought to put my soul without me too — and began to keep a Journal this year in fearless sincerity." Hudspeth identified Neal (1793–1876) as a prolific Maine-born writer and editor.

“I felt charmed by the image presented by Neal in Miller's obituary”

Inferred Fuller reads The Yankee; and Boston Literary Gazette, a Boston periodical edited by John Neal (merged 1828–29), specifically the December 1829 number. This periodical reference documents her active reading per standard practice.

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