WorkWilliam Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) · c. 1594–96; First Folio 1623
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Documented 1844
Additional passages preserved in the Memoirs (1852)
Letters
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.
“This Sunday—I was only eight years old—I took from the book-shelf a volume lettered SHAKSPEARE... I held in my hand 'Romeo and Juliet”
Mem-2 Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli · This Sunday—I was only eight years old
Fuller's own vivid first-person account: 'I took from the book-shelf...I held in my hand Romeo and Juliet,' dated to age eight.
“She was but eight years old when the interest of Romeo and Juliet led her to rebel against the discipline”
Mem-4 Margaret Fuller by Julia Ward Howe · She was but eight years old
Howe's memoir gives a specific age (eight years old) and specific title (Romeo and Juliet) tied to a concrete anecdote.
“I had not strength or time to walk so far, and no fiery-footed steeds offered themselves to convey me.”
Fuller, Margaret. The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Edited by Robert N. Hudspeth. Vol. III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.
Inferred Fuller alludes to Juliet's soliloquy opening Act III, scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet when she uses the phrase "fiery-footed steeds" without attribution.
“this time I held in my hand Romeo and Juliet long enough to get my eye fastened to the page.”
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, eds. Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli. 2 vols. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1852.