WorkJulie de Lespinasse

Lettres de mademoiselle de Lespinasse [Letters of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse]

ExcerptedAnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

Documented 1831

Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

Letters • Manuscripts

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

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 work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

AttestedConfirmed reading1831Evidence ↓

Confirmed reading

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.

Dated
1831Lettres de Mademoiselle de LespinasseAttested
“I am swallowing by gasps that cauldrony beverage of selfish passion and morbid taste the letters of Mile Lespinasse”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · Tuesday eveg[11 October 1831]
"I am swallowing by gasps...the letters of Mlle Lespinasse" is a vivid explicit statement of active reading.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence1record

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist

V. New York

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)1record

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1831—

Letter to James F. Clarke

p182

analyzed · read

“I am swallowing by gasps that cauldrony beverage of selfish passion and morbid taste the letters of Mile Lespinasse It is good for me- How odious is the abandonment of passion such as this unshaded by pride or delicacy, unhallowed by religion- A selfish crabing, only every sound of enjoyment stifled to cherish this burning thirst.”

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

Fuller names "Mlle Lespinasse" and describes actively reading her letters—"swallowing by gasps" indicates current engagement; she delivers extended critical commentary, stating "How odious is the abandonment of passion such as this unshaded by pride or delicacy." Hudspeth identified the letters as Lettres de Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, written from 1773 to 1776.

Undated

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

n.d.—

Extracts Only

p37–48

excerpted · quoted · readManuscript page

“Vous avez deviné a merveille, / ce matin: je voulois votre reponse / et point mon livre.”

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

From pp. 37–48, Fuller copied an extensive sequence of French extracts attributed to ‘L’Espinasse’ (abbreviated variously as L.Es—, L.Espinasse, L.Co., etc.) and ‘Guibert’ in her annotations. The passages attributed ‘L’Espinasse’ are cataloged as a single reference since all are from the same work.

Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)

1852—

Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli

p141

analyzed · read

“I am swallowing by gasps that cauldron-y, beverage of selfish passion and morbid taste, the letters of M'lle D'Espinasse. It is good for me.”

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.