WorkJoseph de Maistre
Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg [The Evenings of Saint Petersburg] (1821), Inferred
Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821) · Paris: Lib. Grecque, latine et française, 2 vols., 1821
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Documented 1821–1840
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Letters • Manuscripts
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.
“All Mrs .F. said of this girl was in perfect harmony with what De Maistre says of the saint of St Petersburg who, almost devoured by cancer, when asked, "Quelle est Ia premiere grace...”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · 13th Deer. [1840]
A substantial multi-clause excerpt including a direct quoted French passage from De Maistre implies the text was consulted directly.
“My book of amusement has been the Evenings of St. Petersburg. I do not find the praises bestowed on it all exaggerated. Yet De Maistre is too logical for me.”
Letters of Margaret Fuller ed. Hudspeth · [8? December 1840]
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re445 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-07b, line 17453, letter Dec 8 1840; tier A; same passage) — counted once here. "My book of amusement has been the Evenings of St. Petersburg" with follow-on evaluative commentary is an explicit reading statement.
“A few words from de Maistre, De M. of himself.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Extracts from De Maistre." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Fuller has transcribed extensive extracts from De Maistre's magnum opus, Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg (first published posthumously, 1821), a theodicy in the form of a Platonic dialogue among three characters (the Count, the Chevalier, and the Senator) set in Saint Petersburg.
“The first story of Melissa will remind you of a beautiful passage in De Maistre's Soirees de St Petersbourg if you have ever read them.”
“My book of amusement has been the Evenings of St. Petersburg. I do not find the praises bestowed on it all exaggerated. Yet De Maistre is too logical for me.”
Fuller explicitly names 'the Evenings of St. Petersburg' as her 'book of amusement' and identifies the author as 'De Maistre.' This is Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, ou Entretiens sur le gouvernement temporel de la Providence (1821), published posthumously in 2 vols. by Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821), the Savoyard philosopher.
“All Mrs F.”
Inferred Fuller directly quotes from De Maistre's Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg in French, citing the 'Troisième entretien' (Third Evening). Hudspeth provided a translation and identified the source.
Hudspeth provided a translation and identified the source.
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
“My book of amusement has been the Evenings of St. Petersburg. I do not find the praises bestowed on it at all exaggerated. Yet De Maistre is too logical 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.