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Library of America #388
Margaret Fuller: Collected Writings (LOA #388)
“Humanity can be divided into three men, women, and Margaret Fuller.”—Edgar Allan Poe
A true American original—radical transcendentalist, intrepid journalist, and pioneering feminist—joins Library of America with the most authoritative single-volume collection of her writings ever, including many rare and previously unpublished works, newly transcribed from original notebooks and journals
Transcendentalist, journalist, feminist, activist, public intellectual, war correspondent, Margaret Fuller’s achievement in her short life was as diverse, wide-ranging, and radical as her multi-generic writings. Now, at long last, this pioneering writer joins Library of America with the most comprehensive and most authoritative version of her writings ever published.
Here are her two best-known Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, an account of her travels to the Great Lakes, a plea for better treatment of the American Indian peoples, and a sketchbook of Fuller’s thought; and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, the foundational document of American feminism and the first major work on women’s rights since Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman fifty-three years earlier.
Joining them are a generous selection of Fuller’s published essays and journalism, including “American Literature” and her reviews and columns for the New York Tribune, as well as her war correspondence from besieged Rome in 1849; unpublished writings and selections from Fuller’s journals, many previously unknown and newly transcribed for this volume; and a selection of Fuller’s letters, including three newly translated from the original Italian.
Rounding out the volume are a chronology by Fuller’s biographer Megan Marshall, along with helpful notes identifying Fuller’s many allusions and quotations, and an index.
A true American original—radical transcendentalist, intrepid journalist, and pioneering feminist—joins Library of America with the most authoritative single-volume collection of her writings ever, including many rare and previously unpublished works, newly transcribed from original notebooks and journals
Transcendentalist, journalist, feminist, activist, public intellectual, war correspondent, Margaret Fuller’s achievement in her short life was as diverse, wide-ranging, and radical as her multi-generic writings. Now, at long last, this pioneering writer joins Library of America with the most comprehensive and most authoritative version of her writings ever published.
Here are her two best-known Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, an account of her travels to the Great Lakes, a plea for better treatment of the American Indian peoples, and a sketchbook of Fuller’s thought; and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, the foundational document of American feminism and the first major work on women’s rights since Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman fifty-three years earlier.
Joining them are a generous selection of Fuller’s published essays and journalism, including “American Literature” and her reviews and columns for the New York Tribune, as well as her war correspondence from besieged Rome in 1849; unpublished writings and selections from Fuller’s journals, many previously unknown and newly transcribed for this volume; and a selection of Fuller’s letters, including three newly translated from the original Italian.
Rounding out the volume are a chronology by Fuller’s biographer Megan Marshall, along with helpful notes identifying Fuller’s many allusions and quotations, and an index.
- GenresHistoryPhilosophy
850 pages, Hardcover
Published February 25, 2025
9 people are currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Margaret Fuller
168 books140 followersSarah Margaret Fuller Ossoli, more commonly known as Margaret Fuller, (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850) was a journalist, critic and women's rights activist associated with the American transcendental movement. She was the first full-time female book reviewer in journalism. Her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work in the United States.
Born Sarah Margaret Fuller in an area of Cambridge, Massachusetts, she was given a substantial early education by her father, Timothy Fuller. She later had more formal schooling and became a teacher before, in 1839, she began overseeing what she called "conversations": discussions among women meant to compensate for their lack of access to higher education. She became the first editor of the transcendental publication The Dial in 1840 before joining the staff of the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley in 1844. By the time she was in her 30s, Fuller had earned a reputation as the best-read person in New England, male or female, and became the first woman allowed to use the library at Harvard College. Her seminal work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, was published in 1845. A year later, she was sent to Europe for the Tribune as its first female correspondent. She soon became involved with the revolution in Italy and allied herself with Giuseppe Mazzini. She also met Giovanni Ossoli, with whom she had a child. All three members of the family died in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, traveling back to the United States in 1850. Fuller's body was never recovered.
Fuller was an advocate of women's rights and, in particular, women's education and the right to employment. She also encouraged many other reforms in society, including prison reform and the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Many other advocates for women's rights and feminism, including Susan B. Anthony, cite Fuller as a source of inspiration. Many of her contemporaries, however, were not supportive, including her former friend Harriet Martineau, who said that Fuller was a talker rather than an activist. Shortly after Fuller's death her importance faded; the editors who prepared her letters to be published, believing her fame would be short-lived, were not concerned about accuracy and censored or altered much of her words before publication.
Born Sarah Margaret Fuller in an area of Cambridge, Massachusetts, she was given a substantial early education by her father, Timothy Fuller. She later had more formal schooling and became a teacher before, in 1839, she began overseeing what she called "conversations": discussions among women meant to compensate for their lack of access to higher education. She became the first editor of the transcendental publication The Dial in 1840 before joining the staff of the New York Tribune under Horace Greeley in 1844. By the time she was in her 30s, Fuller had earned a reputation as the best-read person in New England, male or female, and became the first woman allowed to use the library at Harvard College. Her seminal work, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, was published in 1845. A year later, she was sent to Europe for the Tribune as its first female correspondent. She soon became involved with the revolution in Italy and allied herself with Giuseppe Mazzini. She also met Giovanni Ossoli, with whom she had a child. All three members of the family died in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, traveling back to the United States in 1850. Fuller's body was never recovered.
Fuller was an advocate of women's rights and, in particular, women's education and the right to employment. She also encouraged many other reforms in society, including prison reform and the emancipation of slaves in the United States. Many other advocates for women's rights and feminism, including Susan B. Anthony, cite Fuller as a source of inspiration. Many of her contemporaries, however, were not supportive, including her former friend Harriet Martineau, who said that Fuller was a talker rather than an activist. Shortly after Fuller's death her importance faded; the editors who prepared her letters to be published, believing her fame would be short-lived, were not concerned about accuracy and censored or altered much of her words before publication.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 26, 2025
Margaret Fuller was a remarkable woman for many, many reasons, among them:
Under her father's tutelage she learned at a young age to read Greek and Latin; her writings collected in this book by the Library of America reveal a woman with a superior mind, keen abilities of observation, an abiding sense of curiosity about people and places, and the ability to write prose and poetry of remarkable beauty and content. She was also THE woman among the famed Transcendentalists of the first half of the 19th century.
Unfortunately, she died tragically in a shipwreck within sight of the US coast in 1850 when she was only 40 years old!
Why read her today?
Well, for starters, her views of women's abilities, and the many ways they were stifled, ignored, or otherwise repressed show how "feminism" was not just a phenomenon of the latter 19th and 20th centuries. Rather, like Abagail Adams before her, Ms. Fuller railed at the foolish restrictions placed upon women by men who were either ignorant, fearful, or both. And she does so in the most elegant language!
She also loved to travel, in the United States and in Europe. One of the pleasures of reading her is seeing through her eyes what America looked like 200 years ago when much of it was still wild and unknown country. And her journals that she kept while in Europe are also interesting for the same reasons. One of the entries I found of greatest personal interest was of the days she was in Rome in 1849-50 following the daring democratic uprisings that occurred in many European countries in 1848 and which, within the space of just a few months, all either petered out or were suppressed. And this included the short-lived effort to declare a Roman Republic, too. And this is the same time and, in fact, was the occasion for Pope Leo IX to seemingly change dramatically from a "liberal" who loved and wished to serve the people to a man so thoroughly alarmed by the violence accompanying those revolutions and their aftermath fled into the Vatican when French troops hostile to the new republic invaded Italy and marched into Rome. Her journal entries express in 1849 her infatuation with the liberal Pope and then, just short months later in 1850, her outrage at how he had changed. A rare first-person witness to events that were to have such long-lasting implications for the Catholic Church as for a half century the Church cast a cold eye upon most modern developments, including democracy.
For persons curious to know more about Margaret Fuller, for persons interested in those years, including the many interesting people she knew -- like Edgar Allen Poe, and for those who love to "meet" yet another superb mind who, thanks to the Library of America, we can still "hear," I heartily recommend purchasing this volume and then, as I did, spending many, many evenings dipping into it and enjoying portions of it at a leisurely pace.
I think you'll find that rewarding!
Under her father's tutelage she learned at a young age to read Greek and Latin; her writings collected in this book by the Library of America reveal a woman with a superior mind, keen abilities of observation, an abiding sense of curiosity about people and places, and the ability to write prose and poetry of remarkable beauty and content. She was also THE woman among the famed Transcendentalists of the first half of the 19th century.
Unfortunately, she died tragically in a shipwreck within sight of the US coast in 1850 when she was only 40 years old!
Why read her today?
Well, for starters, her views of women's abilities, and the many ways they were stifled, ignored, or otherwise repressed show how "feminism" was not just a phenomenon of the latter 19th and 20th centuries. Rather, like Abagail Adams before her, Ms. Fuller railed at the foolish restrictions placed upon women by men who were either ignorant, fearful, or both. And she does so in the most elegant language!
She also loved to travel, in the United States and in Europe. One of the pleasures of reading her is seeing through her eyes what America looked like 200 years ago when much of it was still wild and unknown country. And her journals that she kept while in Europe are also interesting for the same reasons. One of the entries I found of greatest personal interest was of the days she was in Rome in 1849-50 following the daring democratic uprisings that occurred in many European countries in 1848 and which, within the space of just a few months, all either petered out or were suppressed. And this included the short-lived effort to declare a Roman Republic, too. And this is the same time and, in fact, was the occasion for Pope Leo IX to seemingly change dramatically from a "liberal" who loved and wished to serve the people to a man so thoroughly alarmed by the violence accompanying those revolutions and their aftermath fled into the Vatican when French troops hostile to the new republic invaded Italy and marched into Rome. Her journal entries express in 1849 her infatuation with the liberal Pope and then, just short months later in 1850, her outrage at how he had changed. A rare first-person witness to events that were to have such long-lasting implications for the Catholic Church as for a half century the Church cast a cold eye upon most modern developments, including democracy.
For persons curious to know more about Margaret Fuller, for persons interested in those years, including the many interesting people she knew -- like Edgar Allen Poe, and for those who love to "meet" yet another superb mind who, thanks to the Library of America, we can still "hear," I heartily recommend purchasing this volume and then, as I did, spending many, many evenings dipping into it and enjoying portions of it at a leisurely pace.
I think you'll find that rewarding!
December 10, 2024
At long last Emerson’s and Thoreau’s volumes in the Library of America are joined by one from their fellow transcendentalist, the feminist firebrand, cultural critic and social reformer Margaret Fuller, whose meteoric life and multifaceted genius are well represented through a selection of essays, columns, letters, journals and full length works. The best known of these last is Woman in the Nineteenth Century, published here in its initial unexpurgated edition of 1845, whose discussion of free love and challenges to the institution of marriage are perhaps less striking today than her anticipation of our current sense of the gender spectrum: ‘Male and female…are perpetually passing into one another. … There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.” Other writings reveal her advocacy for prison reform and the advancement of women, African Americans, Indigenous, Irish and other marginalized persons, uplifted by her staunch faith in human spiritual and social potential. Fuller’s writings as a pioneering foreign- and ultimately war-correspondent from revolutionary Europe are often galvanizing, deepening the loss of her final manuscript on the Italian struggle in the shipwreck that cut short her young life. Like Thoreau an unconventional genius who lived as she thought, Fuller’s towering intellect is often overshadowed by the force of her personality and drama of her biography. This thoughtful survey of her wide-ranging literary output in a single comprehensive collection should help redress the balance. Essential.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews