Sources: Margaret Fuller's letters, journals, manuscripts, and published writings, assembled in the forthcoming Fuller's Reading Worlds (digital platform).
Unlike Emerson and Thoreau — whose reading records are reconstructed in large part from the borrowing ledgers of libraries where they were patrons — Margaret Fuller held no borrowing privileges at the Harvard library, and no charging ledger records her name. Her reading must be reconstructed from a different kind of evidence: her letters, journals, reading notebooks, manuscripts, and published writings, where she names, quotes, excerpts, translates, and argues with the books she read. The entries highlighted here — drawn from the forthcoming digital platform Fuller's Reading Worlds, which assembles every such encounter across her life — focus on books that intersect with the cabinet's mystical, philosophical, and comparative-religious terrain: classical philosophy, Neoplatonism, devotional poetry, German idealism, and the visionary and theosophic traditions of East and West.
| Author | Title | Source | Reading Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Francis Bacon | De Sapientia Veterum (Wisdom of the Ancients)Interprets the Siren legend 'by the interpretation of Bacon upon the legends of the Syren coast.' | Woman in the Nineteenth Century | — |
| Sir Thomas Browne | Religio MediciQuotes at length: 'To credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion.' | Life Without and Life Within | — |
| Richard Crashaw | Steps to the Temple: Sacred PoemsFuller read and excerpted Crashaw's Steps to the Temple — the same work held in the cabinet. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Crashaw, Richard; 2 records) | — |
| Nicolas Malebranche | De la recherche de la vérité [The Search after Truth]Fuller quoted Malebranche's Search after Truth — the same work held in the cabinet. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Malebranche, Nicolas; 1 record) | — |
| François Fénelon | Les Aventures de Télémaque [The Adventures of Telemachus]Fuller read Télémaque. Different work than the cabinet's Dissertation on Pure Love, Dialogues of the Dead, and Maxims of the Saints. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Fénelon, François; 4 records) | — |
| Emanuel Swedenborg | Arcana Coelestia [Heavenly Mysteries]Fuller read and excerpted the Arcana Coelestia — held in the cabinet. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Swedenborg, Emanuel; 26 records) | — |
| Emanuel Swedenborg | Heaven and Hell [De Caelo et Eius Mirabilibus et de Inferno]Fuller read, quoted, and analyzed Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell — the same work held in the cabinet (London, 1823). | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Swedenborg, Emanuel; 26 records) | — |
| Epictetus | Epictetus (works)1826: 'I am studying Madame de Stael, Epictetus, Milton, Racine, and Castilian ballads, with great delight.' | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1826 |
| Novalis | Die Lehrlinge zu Sais; Heinrich von Ofterdingen1832: 'I have read, thoroughly, only two of his pieces, "Die Lehrlinge zu Sais," and "Heinrich von Ofterdingen."' Both are contained in the cabinet's collected Schriften (Berlin, 1836). | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1832 |
| Plato | Euthyphro; Crito; Apology; PhaedoJune 1833: 'I part with Plato with regret... Eutyphron is excellent'; 'Crito I have read only once, but like it'; 'I was much affected by Phaedo.' First-person dialogue-reading report. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1833 |
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Literary Remains1836–37: 'Coleridge's Literary Remains, and drank a great deal from Wordsworth.' Reread and 'ransacked pretty thoroughly.' Not the cabinet's holdings. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1836–1837 |
| Francis Bacon | Novum Organum1836: 'do not let him expect anything of me because I have ventured on a book so profound as the Novum Organum.' | Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli | 1836 |
| Johann Gottlieb Fichte | System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre1836: 'Fichte I could not understand at all; though the treatise which I read was one intended to be popular.' German idealism; no cabinet holding — thematic connection to the cabinet's philosophical terrain. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1836 |
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge | The Friend1837: 'With the Friend I should never have done therefore must get it for mine own.' | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1837 |
| George Herbert | The Temple (poems)1837: 'Thomas a Kempis and George Herbert are constantly at my elbow.' Ongoing devotional reading companionship. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1837 |
| Amos Bronson Alcott | Journals1837: 'I have passed many hours during the last week in the company of your Journals.' Not the cabinet's printed Conversations. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1837 |
| Thomas a Kempis | De Imitatione Christi1837: 'Thomas a Kempis and George Herbert are constantly at my elbow.' See also the Herbert entry. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1837 |
| Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (attrib.) | "Nature—A Prose Poem" (United States Magazine and Democratic Review)1838: Fuller read the Democratic Review piece attributed to Peabody. Authorship attribution uncertain in the Reading Worlds record; not the cabinet's Record of a School. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1838 |
| Plato | Phaedrus; Symposium (the Banquet)1839: 'I have just been reading Plato's Phaedrus, and last night I banqueted with him.' Reread a volume she had 'had several times before.' | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1839 |
| Plato | Theaetetus; Philebus1840: 'Theatetus I read with attention and great profit.' | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1840 |
| Henry More | Cupid's Conflict (poem)1840: received the poem and read it 'with my own pleasure in reading it.' A single poem, not the cabinet's philosophical works. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1840 |
| George Wither | The Shepherd's Hunting1841: four-line stanza quoted verbatim in manuscript. Not the cabinet's Britain's Remembrancer. | Manuscripts (Houghton Library) | 1841 |
| Xenophon | Cyropaedia; Memorabilia1842: 'While here I have been reading (only in translation, alas!) the Cyropaedia and other works of Xenophon.' Different works than the cabinet's holdings. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1842 |
| Kenelm Digby | Life of Sir Kenelm Digby (biography)1842: 'I have been reading the lives of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and of Sir Kenelm Digby.' A life of Digby, not his philosophical work held in the cabinet. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1842 |
| Confucius | Confucian texts (in translation)1844: 'studied much in evenings, Taylor's translations of the old Greek writers, the Confucious, the Desater.' Earlier: 'At one time I used to change from reading Confucius to one of the great religious books of another Eastern nation.' Edition not specified; cannot confirm the cabinet's Latin edition. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth); Life Without and Life Within | 1844 |
| Thomas Taylor | Translations of the old Greek writers1844: 'studied much in evenings, Taylor's translations of the old Greek writers, the Confucious, the Desater.' The cabinet holds Taylor's translations of Porphyry, Aristotle, and others. | Letters of Margaret Fuller (Hudspeth) | 1844 |
| Plato | Republic (Book X)'As I was steeped in the divine tenth book of the Republic.' | Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli | — |
| Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Christabel; Dejection: An OdeExtended critical engagement with the poems in her published criticism. | Papers on Literature and Art | — |
| George Herbert | Employment (I); Prayer; A True Hymn; Affliction (I); The Church ("Sunday")Quoted verbatim across her essays and letters, e.g. 'as Herbert says:—Sundays the pillars are.' | Life Without and Life Within; Papers on Literature and Art; Letters | — |
| Baruch Spinoza | Tractatus Politicus (De Democratia, Cap. XI)'The following extract from Spinoza is worthy of attention... SPINOZA. TRACTATUS POLITICI, DE DEMOCRATIA, CAPUT XI.' Quoted in full; the treatise is contained in the cabinet's collected Works. | Woman in the Nineteenth Century | — |
| Pythagoras | Golden VersesCopied the Golden Verses in manuscript ('Let not soft slumbers close thine Eyes') and quoted them in print. Pythagorean tradition feeds the cabinet's Neoplatonic holdings (Plotinus, Proclus, Iamblichus, Porphyry); no Pythagoras in the cabinet as author. | Manuscripts (Houghton Library); Life Without and Life Within | — |
| Aristotle | Nicomachean EthicsFuller quoted and commented on the Nicomachean Ethics. Different work than the cabinet's Metaphysics and Organon. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Aristotle; 2 records) | — |
| Jeanne Guyon (Madame Guyon) | The Autobiography of Madame GuyonFuller read and excerpted Guyon's autobiography. Different work than the cabinet's Opuscules, Poesies, and Lettres. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Guyon, Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte; 3 records) | — |
| Hesiod | TheogonyFuller read and commented on the Theogony — contained in the cabinet's Works of Hesiod (T. Cooke). | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Hesiod; 8 records) | — |
| Iamblichus | Life of PythagorasFuller read Iamblichus's Life of Pythagoras — the same work held in the cabinet (T. Taylor translation). | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Iamblichus; 1 record) | — |
| William Law | [Work not specified in Reading Worlds records]Fuller read and commented on Law; no specific work named in the current records. The cabinet holds Serious Call and other works. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Law, William; 2 records) | — |
| Pindar | Odes (Epinician Odes)Fuller read Pindar's odes, represented in the cabinet's Greek and Latin anthology. | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Pindar; 2 records) | — |
| Plotinus | [Work not specified in Reading Worlds records]Fuller read and commented on Plotinus; no specific work named in the current records. The cabinet holds the Select Works (T. Taylor). | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Plotinus; 2 records) | — |
| Plutarch | Parallel Lives; Moralia (incl. De Iside et Osiride)Fuller read, quoted, and excerpted across the Lives and Moralia — both held in the cabinet (Lives, Morals). | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Plutarch; 16 records) | — |
| Proclus | [Work not specified in Reading Worlds records]Fuller read and commented on Proclus; no specific work named in the current records. The cabinet holds the Commentaries and Theology (T. Taylor). | Reading Worlds (authors.json: Proclus; 2 records) | — |
Fuller's Reading Worlds. Forthcoming digital platform assembling Margaret Fuller's letters, journals, manuscripts, and published writings.