Margaret Fuller, Critic: Writings from the New-York Tribune, 1844-1846

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Columbia University Press, 2000 - History - 491 pages
Ardent feminist, leader of the transcendentalist movement, participant in the European revolutions of 1848-49, and an inspiration for Zenobia in Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance and the caricature Miranda in James Russell Lowell's Fable for Critics, Margaret Fuller was one of the most influential personalities of her day.

Though a plethora of critical writings, biographies, and bibliographies on Fuller have been available--as well as her three published books, European dispatches, and editions of her letters and journals--until now there has been no complete, reliable edition of her writings from the New-York Tribune, where she was the first literary editor. Fuller wrote 250 articles for the Tribune, only 38 of which have been reprinted in modern editions; this book makes this significant portion of her writings available to the public for the first time.

Judith Mattson Bean and Joel Myerson have assembled a selection of Fuller's essays and reviews on American and British literature, music, culture and politics, and art. The accompanying fully annotated, searchable CD-ROM contains all of Fuller's New-York Tribune writings.

From inside the book

Contents

TOPICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS
xiii
TEXTUAL NOTE
xli
Emersons Essays I
1
Thanksgiving
8
New Years Day
14
Miss Barretts Poems
20
The Liberty Bell for 1845
28
Review of James Russell Lowell Conversations on Some of
35
Review of The Prose Works of John Milton
245
Italy Alfieri
252
The Celestial Empire
259
Review of Caroline M Kirkland Western Clearings
267
Review of Frederick Von Raumer America and the American People
277
Review of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Poems
285
Study of the German Language
293
Peales Court of Death
295

Edgar A Poe
42
Balzac George Sand
54
Review of Richard Hildreth The Slave or Memoirs of Archy Moore
65
Review of The Childs Friend ed Eliza L Follen childrens literature
67
Review of Anton Schindler The Life of Beethoven
71
Review of Henry R Schoolcraft Oneota or The Red Race of America
80
Mr Hudsons Lecture on Hamlet
89
Our City Charities Visit To Bellevue Alms House to the Farm School
98
Writers Little Known Among Us Milnes Landor Julius Hare
105
Frederick Von Raumer upon the Slavery Question
116
Mrs Childs Letters
119
Review of Charles Anthon A System of Latin Versification
121
American Facts
126
Prevalent Idea that Politeness is too great a Luxury to be given
128
Asylum for Discharged Female Convicts
134
Story Books for the Hot Weather for a review of Nathaniel Parker Willis
138
United States Exploring Expedition
143
Review of Charles Sealsfield Tokeah or the White Rose
145
The Irish Character
146
Fourth of July
149
Review of Anna Cora Mowatt Evelyn
152
The Irish Character
155
Thomas Hood
161
Review of Caroline Norton The Child of the Islands and John Critchley Prince
173
First of August 1845
183
Thomas Hood
189
Princes Poems
195
Music and
206
The Great Britain
207
Review of Sylvester Judd Margaret
210
Review of Philip James Bailey Festus
211
The Tailor
220
Jenny Lind The Consuelo of George Sand
227
The Wrongs of American Women The Duty of American Women
233
Ole Bull
240
Books of Travel
299
Review of Thomas Carlyle Oliver Cromwells Letters and Speeches
306
Review of The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley
317
1st January 1846
323
Review of Schoolcraft Jones Ellen or Forgive and Forget
333
Clay
338
Methodism at the Fountain
342
Publishers and Authors Dolores by Harro Harring
350
The Rich ManAn Ideal Sketch
359
Review of Leigh Hunt Italian Poets
367
Consecration of Grace Church
372
The Poor ManAn Ideal Sketch
375
Instruction in the French Language
384
What Fits a Man to be a Voter? Is it to be White Within
386
Robert Brownings Poems
390
Robert Brownings Poems
391
Wiley Putnams Library
400
Age could not wither her
402
Mistress of herself though china fall
406
A Novel of South America
410
Victory
424
The Grand Festival Concert at Castle Garden
426
Review of Eliza W Farnham Life in Prairie Land
429
Review of Waddy Thompson Recollections of Mexico
431
Critics and Essayists
439
Review of Joel T Headley Napoleon and His Marshals
448
Review of George Sand Consuelo
457
Review of Thomas L McKenney Memoirs Official and Personal
464
Review of Charles Brockden Brown Wieland or the Transformation
472
Review of Anna Jameson Memoirs and Essays
476
Review of Samuel Maunder The Treasury of History
481
Thanksgiving 8
484
Balzac
485
Review of Theodore Parker The Excellence of Goodness 93
488
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About the author (2000)

Born in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts, young Fuller was subjected to a severe educational regimen by her father, who was determined to treat his daughter's mind no differently from that of the son he had desired. By the age of eight, Fuller was reading the Latin classics and was soon proficient in several modern European languages. She was especially interested in modern German literature, a passion that brought her to the attention of the New England Transcendentalists, who were attempting at the time to redefine human experiences. With Ralph Waldo Emerson, she founded, and for a while edited, The Dial (1840--1842), the quarterly magazine of literature, philosophy, and religion that had grown out of the meetings of the Transcendental Club in Boston. Also about this time, she began conducting a series of Saturday afternoon "Conversations," discussions of intellectual and literary topics that soon gained great popularity, especially among upper-middle-class Boston women. From these experiences developed her advanced feminist views as elucidated in Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845). In 1844 Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, one of the most important newspapers in the nation, hired her to join his staff, and, during the next two years in New York, Fuller gained national prominence as a critic of art and literature. Some of her essays were reprinted in Papers on Literature and Art (1846), one of the most astute works of criticism to appear in the United States before the Civil War. In August 1846, Fuller sailed for Europe, where she was to act as correspondent for the Tribune. These were tumultuous, revolutionary times in Europe, and Fuller soon added her voice to the republican cause that was challenging the established, reactionary political order throughout the Continent. In Italy she met and later married a young aristocrat, Giovanni Angelo, the Marchese Ossoli, a follower of the Italian revolutionary leader, Giuseppe Mazzini. Following the failure of the newly proclaimed Roman Republic in 1849, Fuller, together with her husband and their son, decided to return to the United States, where she could see through the press the history that she had written of the Roman Revolution of 1848--1849. Tragically, however, the family was lost at sea when their vessel sank off Fire Island, near New York, in July 1850. Fuller's personality and activities generated much interest and strong disagreement, both during her lifetime and since. Her most enduring writing is not her published essays and books but, rather, her personal correspondence, in which the vitality of her mind and the strength of her character are brilliantly revealed. Joel Myerson (born 1945) is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of South Carolina. He has edited many books about the works of such American literary figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman.

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