Author
Xenophon is documented in Fuller’s letters, books, and manuscripts (1841–1845). 6 distinct works are named, most often in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, 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 Xenophon’s work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“While here I have been reading (only in translation, alas!) the Cyropaedia and other works of Xenophon”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Canton, 12th May 1842
Explicit 'I have been reading... the Cyropaedia and other works of Xenophon'.
“In my quiet retreat I read Xenophon, and became more acquainted with his Socrates.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 17 June [1842]
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re810 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-07b, line 18798; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. Explicit 'In my quiet retreat I read Xenophon'.
“I have had a still time to read the translation of the story of Panthea, in which Richard's pen was aided by your Mother and father and you as judges and reformers. I have not had a still time before since it came. I think the translation is beautifully done, though I may make some slight exceptions; whether I shall or no, am not quite sure. Is it not the most exquisitely told history of married love. To me it is ever satisfactory.”
This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.
Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.
“I will hope for a letter from you soon, to tell how Horace and Xenophon and Goodenow go on”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
Inferred Fuller names Xenophon as one of Richard's studies; no specific work named, though Anabasis and Memorabilia were standard curriculum texts.
“While here I have been reading (only in translation, alas!) the Cyropaedia and other works of Xenophon and some dramas of Euripides, and, were envy ever worth our while, I should deeply envy those who can with convenience gain access to the Greek mind in its proper garb.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Same passage, formerly a separate row (r1490): Fuller confirms reading "other works of Xenophon" beyond the Cyropaedia without naming them specifically; a related letter identifies one of these as the Memorabilia, Xenophon's writings on Socrates.
“In my quiet retreat I read Xenophon, and became more acquainted with his Socrates. I had before known only the Socrates of Plato, one much more to my mind.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Fuller confirms active reading of Xenophon's Socratic writings during her time in Canton, engaging in substantive comparison between Xenophon's Socrates and Plato's Socrates, contrasting both with Jesus. She mentions intending to send notes on Xenophon to Channing, further attesting to her close analytical reading.
“It pleases me that you feel so truly what is told of Panthea. I believe there is nothing writ that is more to my mind. Can you doubt the possibility of such feelings?”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Inferred Fuller alludes to the Panthea episode from Xenophon's Cyropaedia, which she had discussed and summarized in her recently published Woman in the Nineteenth Century.
“I shall get out a 2d edition here before long, I hope, and wish you would translate for me and send those other parts of the story of Panthea you thought I might like.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Inferred Fuller asks Richard to 'translate for me and send those other parts of the story of Panthea you thought I might like,' requesting additional passages from Xenophon's Cyropaedia for possible use in a second edition of Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Panthea, the devoted wife of Abradatas, is unique to Xenophon's Cyropaedia and serves as Fuller's prime example of womanly virtue.
“I have had a still time to read the translation of the story of Panthea, in which Richard's pen was aided by your Mother and father and you as judges and reformers.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
“The Greek Xenophon has not only painted as a sweet picture of the domestic woman, in his Economics”
“but in the Cyropedia has given, in the picture of Panthea, a view of woman which no German picture can surpass”
Inferred Named explicitly as 'Cyropedia'; Panthea is the central female character of this romance.
“It is from the romance in which Xenophon, the chivalrous Greek, presents his ideal of what human nature should be. The generals of Cyrus had taken captive a princess...”
“From the Banquet.”
“In the Economics, the manner in which the husband gives counsel to his young wife, presents the model of politeness and refinement.”
Fuller, Margaret. Woman in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845.
Undated
Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.
“I was so pleased last autumn with the Anabasis that I seized the first opportunity of leisure to become still further acquainted with my Xenophon”
“But in his Ideal I don't admire him quite so much as in himself [...] Cyrus in the romance is great wise, brave, gentle, and politic but except in a few sweet traits copied direct from life, 'frigid' as his companions say.”
“I read a good deal of his Socrates in the Memorabilia, Banquet & Economics.”
The same sentence also names Symposium [Banquet]; Oeconomicus [Economics]. Counted as one engagement.
Fuller, Margaret. "On Xenophon, Cyrus, and Socrates." Houghton Library, Harvard University.