Our newest free ebook is Margaret Fuller Ossoli's Woman in the Nineteenth Century. The more I read about Fuller's life, the more I am intrigued. There is usually an "ah-ha" moment during my research when I know I've found something that must be on Girlebooks. My "ah-ha" moment for Woman in the Nineteenth Century came when reading the following synopsis for a book called Why Margaret Fuller Ossoli Is Forgotten:
This is a true account of how Margaret Fuller was buried in history. At the end of her life, age 40, Margaret Fuller had earned the reputation of being one of the most radical and intellectual persons in the English-speaking world. Her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and her front page reviews and articles in Horace Greeley's New York Daily Tribune were read by all Americans who wished to keep up with what was most current. Yet Fuller remains invisible in textbooks today. She is not awarded the space and respect that is given to our American greats. This tells the story, including how her biographers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, found it necessary to alter, censor, and destroy her letters and papers, and minimize her achievements. Thus, scholars throughout the century have taken the cue and downplayed or ignored her significance.
In researching Fuller, I also came upon an excellent website called Quotidiana. They have hundreds of critical essays posted, including a section of essays by women. There are essays by Margaret Fuller, Fanny Burney, Harriet Jacobs, Mary Shelley and Maria Edgeworth, to name a few. Check it out and let us know what you think!
This is a true account of how Margaret Fuller was buried in history. At the end of her life, age 40, Margaret Fuller had earned the reputation of being one of the most radical and intellectual persons in the English-speaking world. Her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and her front page reviews and articles in Horace Greeley's New York Daily Tribune were read by all Americans who wished to keep up with what was most current. Yet Fuller remains invisible in textbooks today. She is not awarded the space and respect that is given to our American greats. This tells the story, including how her biographers, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Henry Channing, and James Freeman Clarke, found it necessary to alter, censor, and destroy her letters and papers, and minimize her achievements. Thus, scholars throughout the century have taken the cue and downplayed or ignored her significance.
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