Margaret Fuller’s Reading Worlds

WorkJohann Nikolaus Forkel

Life of Bach

Life of Bach Inferred

Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1749–1818)

InferredFuller quotes without naming the work — “The following extract from the preface, gives an idea of the spirit in which the whole book is written. " How do I wish I were able to describe, according to its merit, t…” — and the identification as Life of Bach rests on the quoted words.

AnalyzedQuotedRead

Documented 1846

Books

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 readingEvidence ↓

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.

  • undatedLife of Bach (translated from the German)Attested

    “The life of Bach which I have before me, (translated from the German of J. N. Forkel, author also of the 'Complete History of Music,') is by far the best of any of these records.”

    Papers on Literature and Art

    Explicit statement 'The life of Bach which I have before me...' places the specific book physically in her hands while writing.

When Fuller engaged with this work

I. Childhood
II. Adolescence
III. Self-Directed
IV. Transcendentalist
V. New York
VI. Europe1record
✦. Memoirs (1852)
1810
1820
1832
1836
1844
1846
1850
1846—

Lives of the Great Composers

“Lives of the Great Composers”
analyzed · quoted · read
“The following extract from the preface, gives an idea of the spirit in which the whole book is written.”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p251

Inferred Fuller quotes without naming the work — “The following extract from the preface, gives an idea of the spirit in which the whole book is written. " How do I wish I were able to describe, according to its merit, t…” — and the identification as Life of Bach rests on the quoted words.

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p251; page given is to the 1869 reprint.