WorkLudwig van Beethoven

Letters

Letters Inferred

InferredFuller refers to “his letters to the young man” (Beethoven’s letters to his nephew) without naming an edition or collection; “Letters” is the editor’s descriptive title.

AnalyzedQuotedReadMentioned

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 →

DemonstratedConfirmed 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.

undatedBeethoven's letters to the Immortal Beloved (Julia)Demonstrated
“Beethoven's three love letters to Julia. (from a bathing place in Hungary) 6th July morning. My angel, my all, my (self)...”
Manuscripts (Houghton Library, Margaret Fuller Family Papers)
A substantial verbatim excerpt of Beethoven's love letter is copied out at length.
undatedLetter to Bettina BrentanoDemonstrated
“Extract from a letter of Beethoven to Bettina Brentano, Toplitz, 1812. 'Kings and princes can indeed make professors...”
Life Without and Life Within (essays)
Presented as an 'extract from a letter' of a historical document reproduced at length, implying substantial verbatim excerpting.

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

“No tragedy is deeper than the perusal of his letters to the young man, so brief and so significant, so stern and so tender.”

Fuller, Margaret. Papers on Literature and Art. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. · p274

Inferred Fuller refers to “his letters to the young man” (Beethoven’s letters to his nephew) without naming an edition or collection; “Letters” is the editor’s descriptive title.

Also printed in Art, Literature, and the Drama (1869), p274; page given is to the 1869 reprint.