Finding Margaret Fuller: A Novel

Margaret remains in Cambridge in the winter of 1843 to finish research on her travels in the wilderness: Summer on the Lakes. She has been granted special permission to use Harvard’s library for this task. The facility has always been forbidden to women. Margaret thinks, “Now here I stand, inside their building. A woman who has likely read more than any man in here. Surely I am a woman who has published more than any man in here. I have a right to be here” (206). Even though her arrival raises many eyebrows, the male students eventually accept her presence. Months later, the manuscript is ready for publication. Waldo helps negotiate a deal with Little and Brown for Margaret’s book. She’ll receive a royalty of 10 cents for every copy sold.

By the summer of 1844, Margaret is back in Concord. Her book is a great success and yields financial profits. Greeley writes a glowing review of Summer on the Lakes and says he plans to make Margaret an offer of employment. In Concord, happy changes have occurred. Thoreau has built a cabin on Walden Pond and intends to retreat there. Lidian is expecting another baby. The Hawthornes now have a daughter. During this same period, Margaret is troubled by a recurring nightmare in which she feels herself drowning. However, her grim thoughts on the subject ease when an offer letter from Greeley arrives. He’ll pay her the princely sum of $10 per week ($400 in today’s currency) to be his new literary editor. She makes her farewells to her Concord friends, Waldo in particular, thinking, “This parting will take me farther afield. To work that will make demands on me in ways I do not yet even fully understand. And I don’t know when I shall return” (216).

In the fall of 1844, Margaret arrives in New York to begin her job at the Tribune. She presents Greeley with her latest manuscript, Woman in the Nineteenth Century. In it, Margaret argues against forcing people to occupy gender-specific roles in life: “A woman is a human, and as such, has a right to know her own worth, to pursue self-realization and satisfying work, same as any man” (219). Greeley is impressed and offers to publish the book himself.

By the following spring, Margaret’s book sells 1,500 copies and goes into multiple printings. She has settled into an upstairs room at the Greeley farmstead outside the city and walks to work every day with her editor. She thinks, “America is changing, and nowhere is that more visible than in New York City. Here, in Greeley’s newsroom, I am on the front lines of that change, working toward something that feels most meaningful” (226).

One summer evening, Margaret arrives at a literary gathering where she’s to speak. Among the attendees is Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote a sarcastic review of her latest book, calling her “Margaret Fooler.” When Margaret rises to speak, she talks about the deplorable conditions in the city’s slums: “Poe can speak about his dreary midnights all he likes [“The Raven”]—I have in fact been to places as macabre and desolate as anything in his wild imaginings. And they are right here in our city” (231). She urges her audience to take action to help the less fortunate. During her talk, Margaret overhears Poe calling her a busybody. She retorts by saying, “You are correct, Mr. Poe, I am quite busy. So busy, in fact, that I have little time or inclination to contend with you further” (233). She does, however, point out the correct spelling of her last name: F-U-L-L-E-R.

In the spring of 1846, Horace proposes a new use for Margaret’s talents. He wants to send her to Europe as the Tribune’s first foreign correspondent. She’s to send back articles on various topics, but Horace is particularly interested in the move toward political unification in the Italian city-states: “Pretty soon I think we might see a country called Italy…and I’d like you to tell us what that’s like” (238).

In the summer of 1846, Margaret returns to Cambridge to visit her mother before leaving the country. Waldo appears there, too, to bid her farewell. He presents Margaret with a set of butterfly hair combs. He says, “I am filled with joy to see you fly. I only ask that you bring this small piece of Concord—and me—along with you” (244).

In Boston harbor, Margaret boards the steamship Cambria, bound for Liverpool. For the sake of propriety, she’ll travel in the company of a married couple named Spring and tutor their young son. The captain comes to introduce himself to her, saying that Frederick Douglass, a Black author and social activist, once traveled on the same ship. The captain tells her, “Mr. Douglass is urging our nation to grow into its promise for the members of his race, just as you are doing the very same for the members of your gender” (248).

After arriving in England, Margaret visits William Wordsworth, a venerable poet laureate there. He shows her his garden. When Margaret speaks of the political agitation beginning in Italy, Wordsworth expresses no interest. He prefers to leave the battle for freedom to the younger generation. Margaret thinks, “I have had enough of walking and talking my way through gardens. I am eager to throw myself into the melee. Because I believe that my words have a power that I cannot waste” (252).

In February 1847, Margaret is in Paris, where she receives an invitation to a recital at the home of composer Frederic Chopin. There, she meets Chopin’s lover, famous author George Sand (Amantine Dupin de Francueil). Margaret is shocked that the woman wears trousers and smokes a cigar, yet no one at the gathering censures her for this behavior. Margaret thinks, “Here, in Paris, Sand is celebrated for the way she lives, for her audacious and uninhibited choices. Her salon is always full, her ideas shared and revered” (260). Sand has heard of the outspoken American and likes her instantly. She hints that Margaret has the forthright attitude of an Italian and that will undoubtedly love Rome.