1839—
Letter to Ralph Waldo Emerson
p98read
“I shall get for you Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre, if ever it is in my power”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. II. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984.
WorkGeorge Sand (Aurore Dudevant)
Les Sept Cordes de la Lyre [The Seven Strings of the Lyre]
George Sand (Aurore Dudevant) (1804–1876)
AnalyzedReadMentioned
Documented 1839
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 →
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
- 1839Les Sept cordes de la LyreAttested
“But in Les Sept cordes de la Lyre which I read first, I saw the knowledge of the passions”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers) · 1839 (date supplied by merged witness re220, Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections))
MERGED 2026-10-11: absorbed duplicate witness(es) re220 (Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (sections), Mem-2-05, line 10623; tier A; date taken from this witness; same passage) — counted once here. First-person statement 'which I read first' explicitly describing reading George Sand's work.
When Fuller engaged with this work
1839—
Notes on Balzac, George Sand, De Vigny, and Béranger
p13analyzed · readManuscript page
“But in Les Sept cordes de la Lyre which I read first, I saw the knowledge of the passions and of social institutions with the celestial choice which rose above them, I loved Helene who could so well hear the terrene voices, yet keep her eye fixed on the stars.”
Fuller, Margaret. "Notes on Balzac, George Sand, De Vigny, and Béranger." Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
1840—
Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli
p197analyzed · read
“S—— and others who admire her, are anxious to make a fancy picture of her, and represent her as a Helena (in the Seven Chords of the Lyre); all whose mistakes are the fault of the present state of society.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.
Fuller refutes the tendency to portray Sand as Hélène, a figure whose purported errors are readily attributed to societal flaws.