Author

John Sterling(1806–1844)

John Sterling is documented in Fuller’s letters and books (1838–1846). 9 distinct works are named, most often in The Modern Drama, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement: ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in: Letters · Books
Documented: 1838–1846

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 Sterling’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
1839Work not namedAttested
“the Stirlings in two Blackwoods, and little bits of Plato, Coleridge, Goethe and Ben Jonson”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Groton 4th March 183g- [1839]
Continuation of the same explicit 'read' list sentence naming Sterling's pieces.

In Fuller’s words

“This very difficult subject for tragedy engaged, at about the same time, the attention of Sterling. [...] Sterling's conception of the character and conduct of the drama is far superior to that of Browning. [...] Sterling at least did not falsify the character of Strafford, bitter, ruthlessly ambitious, but strong and majestic throughout.”

Strafford: A Tragedy · Papers on Literature and Art · 1846

When Fuller engaged with John Sterling

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist6records

V. New York3records

VI. Europe6records

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

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

Sterling in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1838—

Letter to Charles K. Newcomb

p350

read

“You can keep these a week. Read Thoughts and Images by Archaeus, as well as the poem.”

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

Fuller explicitly names "Thoughts and Images by Archaeus" and instructs Newcomb to read it, as Hudspeth identified, Archaeus was the pen name of John Sterling and that the work appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (August 1838). Hudspeth also notes that Emerson sent Fuller the August 1838 issue on 23 October 1838, which she is now lending to Newcomb after having read it herself.

1839—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p54

analyzed · read

“I hope you will have the next Archaeus when I am within your gates. I am very much interested in this gallery. What a good attempt at a Goethe! Stirling's is just such a mind as I like.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

1839—

Letter to Caroline Sturgis

p59

read

“All the reading I did was occasionally when lying down in day time Mr Very's sonnets and pieces, Jane's letters, the Stirlings in two Blackwoods and little bits of Plato, Coleridge, Goethe and Ben Jonson.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

Inferred Fuller names "the Stirlings in two Blackwoods"—John Sterling's pieces appearing in consecutive issues of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (volumes 44–45, 1838–1839), Fuller's casual mention of reading these works while resting suggests selective rather than sustained engagement with Sterling's contributions.

1839—

Letter to Sarah Helen Whitman

p74

analyzed · quoted · read2 selected passages

“Have you read the Onyx Ring in Blackwood and do you remember the "violent and resplendent hour" there described. Mr Emerson thought it too theatrical. I liked it.”

She also identifies Sterling as the author of "Crystals from a Cavern" and the poems signed Archaeus, crediting his work as encouragement to her own writing.

“This author, Sterling, who wrote also the Crystals from a Cavern and the fine poetical pieces signed Archaeus is a great encouragement to me.”

The same sentence also names Thoughts and Images' and/or 'Land and Sea'. Counted as one engagement.

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.

1843—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p159

analyzed · read

“I will bring in Taylor's and Coleridge's too, and make an olla, where Stirling will figure to more advantage than he would alone. [...] I hope to write your piece about Strafford”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

1844—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

analyzed · read

“Sterling's death was a painful surpriz I thought he would get better and do a little more in our house here.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Inferred Hudspeth identified her reviews appeared in Dial 2 (1841) and 4 (1844, pp. 327–49), the latter being a major critical assessment.

1845—

Woman in the Nineteenth Century

footnote (source line 1302)

quoted · read

“Sterling's emendation is worthy of honor — "Realize your cant, not cast it off.”

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

Fuller quotes a saying attributed to John Sterling (1806–1844), the British essayist, poet, and friend of Carlyle and Emerson: 'Realize your cant, not cast it off.'

1846—

Papers on Literature and Art

p125

excerpted · analyzed · quoted · read4 selected passages

“We come now to the work which affords the most interesting theme for this notice [...] Its author, Mr.”

“Some of these have been collected into a small volume, which has been republished in this country.”

She names The Sexton's Daughter, Aphrodite, Alfred the Harper ('Still lives the song though Regnar dies'), Daedalus (quoted in full, 13 stanzas), The Wooded Mountains (whose measure she says 'seems borrowed from Goethe'), The Rose and the Gauntlet, Lady Jane Grey, and 'his poem on Shakspeare' — all from Sterling's 1839 Poems, originally contributed to Blackwood's.

“Strafford never alters, never is kindled by or kindles the life of any other being, never breathes the breath of the moment.”

“This very difficult subject for tragedy engaged, at about the same time, the attention of Sterling.”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

1846—

The Modern Drama

“The Modern Drama”

analyzed · quoted · read5 selected passages

“Strafford, a tragedy, by John Sterling. London; Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1943.”

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p109; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

“Its author, Mr. Sterling, has many admirers among us, drawn to him by his productions, both in prose and verse, which for a time enriched the pages of Blackwood.”

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p136; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

“His Aphrodite is fitly painted, and we should have dreamed it so from all his verse.”

“In both regards we can look at Mr. Sterling's work with pleasure and admiration.”

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p145; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

“Copious extracts have been given, in the belief that thus, better than by any interpretation or praise of ours, attention would be attracted, and a wider perusal ensured to Mr.”

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p161; page given is to the 1869 reprint.

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

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

1839—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p137

quoted · read

“This morning came 's letter, announcing Sterling's death :— 'Weep for Dedalus all that is fairest”

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's engagement with John Sterling's poetry is evidenced in her reaction to his September 1844 death, when she recalled the opening lines of his poem "Daedalus," published in his 1839 collection. By quoting "Wail for Daedalus, all that is fairest!", Fuller demonstrates familiarity with Sterling's work and acknowledges his passing through his own artistic lament.