In the late 1830s, an aspiring writer went to stay at the home of Ralph Waldo Emerson and over the next decade, became a sought after literary critic, founding mother of the women's rights movement, and bestselling author. Yet few today know of Margaret Fuller, who died in 1850 at the age of 40. This book tells her story, from that first visit to Emerson's home through her work becoming a literary critic and foreign correspondent covering Italy's bid for unification. Peppered throughout the book are many literary heavyweights including, Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott (who was a little girl at the time), Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Sand, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
I don't know much about the Transcendentalists, much less Margaret Fuller, but after reading this book, I can honestly say I want to learn more about her. The first half of the book felt very focused on the men around Fuller, which seemed unfortunate for a book about such a fiery feminist, though the second half (which roughly corresponds with when she stopped spending so much time at Emerson's house) finds Fuller finally in the spotlight, and as such, is a much better part of the book. I can only wish that the whole book had been that way, and that I could have heard more about her travels as a single woman (which was very risque at the time). I suppose I'll have to track down some of her own writings to learn more about that.
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