WorkRalph Waldo Emerson

“The Humble Bee”

The Humble Bee (composed c. 1837; first published in Western Messenger 7 [May 1839]:16–17; collected in Poems

AnalyzedReadMentioned

Documented 1844

Letters

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 →

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood

II. Adolescence

III. Self-Directed

IV. Transcendentalist

V. New York1record

VI. Europe

✦. Memoirs (1852)

1810

1820

1832

1836

1844

1846

1850

1844—

Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson

p176

analyzed · read

“Her hand was then placed on the poem. [...] Then was given her one from you to James containing a copy of 'The Humble Bee.' She expressed pleasure and serenity at once from this contact.”

Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.