Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

Author

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)(1694–1778)

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) is documented in Fuller’s letters, published essays, reading notebooks, and manuscripts (1825–1845). One work is named, most often in Letter to James F. Clarke, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “excerpted”.

Engagement
ExcerptedQuotedReadMentioned
Present in
Letters · Essays · Notebooks · Manuscripts
Documented
1825–1845
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 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)’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
  • 1831Work not namedAttested

    “My pleasures... reading Voltaire hearing the great trees rattle”

    Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Tuesday eveg[11 October 1831]

    "reading Voltaire" is an explicit present-tense reading statement listed among her pleasures.

In Fuller’s words

“Weitling is made responsible for Marx, Feuerbach for Cabet, Bernays for Dexanus, just as the old champions of Church and State used to hold Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot and D’Alembert responsible for all the excesses”
The Social Movement in Europe. · 1845

When Fuller engaged with Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence3records
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist
V. New York2records
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.

(Arouet in Fuller’s reading world

Documentary evidence

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

1825—

Reading Notebook 1825–1827

p. 56
excerpted · quoted · readSearch Digital Fuller (page unverified)
“Souvent dans le loisir d'une heureuse fortune / Le ridicule amuse; on se prête a ses traits / Mais il fatigue, il importune / Les cœurs infortunés et les esprits bien faits. / Voltaire.”

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

Fuller attributes a French verse to Voltaire but identifies no specific work. Attributed 'Voltaire.' A four-line French verse on ridicule and fortune.

1830—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p173
read
“I am glad you did not Martinize last night”

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

Fuller uses the verb "Martinize" (indulging in Martin-style pessimism), derived from the character Martin in Voltaire's Candide, which Clarke had quoted in his letter.

1831—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p181
read
“My pleasures (the others were duties so called) reading Voltaire”

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

Inferred Fuller names Voltaire as a pleasure she is reading in 1831, though no specific title is given; she mentions the same letter includes reading De Staël's De l'Allemagne and looking for Werner, with the Voltaire reference separate.

1845—

Thomas Hood.

“Thomas Hood.”
mentioned
“There is speculation in the eyes, a curl of the lip, and a general character in the outline, that reminds one of some portraits of Voltaire.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Thomas Hood." New-York Daily Tribune, 9 August 1845. · 9 August 1845

1845—

The Social Movement in Europe.

“The Social Movement in Europe.”
mentioned
“Weitling is made responsible for Marx, Feuerbach for Cabet, Bernays for Dexanus, just as the old champions of Church and State used to hold Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot and D’Alembert responsible for all the excesses”

Fuller, Margaret. "The Social Movement in Europe." New-York Daily Tribune, 5 August 1845. · 5 August 1845

Undated

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

n.d.—

Extracts Only

p3
excerpted · quoted · readManuscript page
“Toutes ces vastes pays et d’Azur et de Lumiere / Tires du sein du vide, et formes sans matiere / Arrondis sans compas, et tournons sans pivot / Ont a peine coûté la dépense d’un mot”

Fuller, Margaret. "Extracts Only." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (88); Box 6 (88).

Four-line French quatrain attributed to Voltaire in the notebook; describes God creating the cosmos from nothing at the cost of a single word. Specific poem not identified; theme is consistent with Voltaire's philosophical verse.

n.d.—

Notes toward The Life of Goethe

p12, p21
mentionedManuscript page
“p12: 'repetition of story of Frederic le Grand / and Voltaire'; p21: 'Why they repelled Voltaire / and jeered at "le Systeme / de la Nature”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notes toward The Life of Goethe." Houghton Library, Harvard University.