WorkThomas Carlyle
The French Revolution: A History (London: James Fraser, 1837) Inferred
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) · London: James Fraser, 1837
AnalyzedReadMentioned
Documented 1837–1846
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Letters • Journals
Selected engagements, in chronological order.
Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →
Passages where the evidence goes beyond allusion to indicate that Fuller had this work in hand — an explicit statement of reading, sustained excerpting or translation, or a specific reading episode recorded by those who knew her.
“While at Concord I read the first vol of Carlyle's French Revolution which he sent to Mr Emerson.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Sepr 2d Providence [1837]
"I read the first vol of Carlyle's French Revolution" is an explicit, dated reading statement.
“Carlyle as noble as I hoped, absorbing me quite for a fortnight, Lamb's letters, Whately's Rhetoric.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Providence 1st March 1838
"Carlyle...absorbing me quite for a fortnight" is an explicit statement of sustained active reading.
“I think it is somewhat ungracious in you to resume your gift of the proof sheet which I was about to lay in lavender by the side of that first most appropriate token of your regard”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
Inferred Emerson sent Fuller a proof sheet of Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History, then awaiting publication in May 1837.
“While at Concord I read the first vol of Carlyle's French Revolution which he sent to Mr Emerson.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Carlyle's French Revolution I hope to have for you then.”
“I had not anticipated any further obstacles, but had made up my mind to read to you Bancrofts History and Carlyle, and take care of you in all peace and quietness”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Carlyle as noble as I hoped, absorbing me quite for a fortnight.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. I. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983.
“Revolution interested me much & I wished I could have them to look at while rereading Carlyle's book.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Journal Fragments, 1842." Margaret Fuller Family Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.
“The most amusing part is always when he comes back to some refrain as in the French Revolution of the Sea-Green; in this instance it was Petrarch in Laura”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. IV. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
Fuller explicitly names "the French Revolution" and identifies its recurring epithet "Sea-Green," referring to Carlyle's The French Revolution: A History, where Robespierre is repeatedly described as "the sea-green Incorruptible." She uses this as an analogy for Carlyle's verbal habit of obsessively repeating a phrase.
“The most amusing part is always when he comes back to some refrain, as in the French Revolution of the sea-green.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.