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The complete bibliography of the transcendentalist who wrote America’s first major feminist book
Margaret Fuller was reading Latin at six, editing the transcendentalist journal The Dial alongside Emerson by thirty, and had become the first female full-time book critic in American journalism by thirty-four — at the New-York Tribune, where she was the only woman in the newsroom. In 1846 she sailed for Europe as America’s first female foreign war correspondent, reporting on the Roman Revolution while pregnant, before dying in a shipwreck off Fire Island in 1850, on the voyage home, at just forty years old.
Below is her complete bibliography in chronological order, with my honest take on each one, a quick-facts box, several insights drawn from Maria Popova’s writing about her on The Marginalian, and an FAQ. Fuller was a formative influence on Emerson and a hero to later feminists like Susan B. Anthony, so if her ideas interest you, I’ve also written about Henry David Thoreau, her fellow transcendentalist and contemporary.
Sources: Wikipedia, the Library of Congress Margaret Fuller papers, and contemporary reporting cited throughout. Last updated July 2026.
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) was an American journalist, critic, and transcendentalist whose 1845 book Woman in the Nineteenth Century is considered the first major feminist work published in the United States. She was also America’s first full-time female book critic (New-York Tribune, 1844) and its first female foreign war correspondent, reporting from Rome during the 1848–49 revolution. She died at 40 in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, in July 1850, returning from Italy with her husband and infant son — a wreck that also destroyed the only manuscript of her history of the Roman Revolution, her most ambitious unfinished work.
“Let them be sea captains, if you will.”
— Margaret Fuller, on women’s right to choose any vocation, in Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Quick facts
Summer on the Lakes, in 1843
Fuller’s account of a trip west from New England through the Great Lakes region, blending travel writing, a widely admired description of Niagara Falls, and a sympathetic record of the displaced Native American tribes she encountered along the way. It was her first book and, unusually for a debut, sold faster than Ralph Waldo Emerson’s first book had.
Fuller published this under the initials “S.M. Fuller,” afraid her sex would hurt the book’s reception — a common tactic among women nonfiction writers of the era. Worth reading for the Niagara passages alone, but also as an early example of a woman blending journalism, ethnography, and philosophical reflection into one book, decades before that combination had a name.
Her most famous book
Woman in the Nineteenth Century
An expansion of her 1843 Dial essay “The Great Lawsuit,” arguing that women deserve the same intellectual and vocational freedom as men, up to and including professions considered unthinkable for women at the time. It is widely regarded as the first major feminist treatise published in the United States and directly influenced the organizers of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.
Dense, argumentative, and occasionally over-stuffed with classical and literary allusion — this is not an easy entry point the way a modern feminist memoir would be. But the core argument still lands, and one line in particular (“let them be sea captains, if you will”) has outlived the book’s more academic passages for good reason: it’s the whole argument in six words.
Papers on Literature and Art
A collection of Fuller’s essays and reviews, largely drawn from her work at The Dial and the New-York Tribune, covering American and European literature, music, and the visual arts. It showcases the critical voice that made her, by her thirties, one of the most influential literary tastemakers in the young United States.
This is the book to read if you’re curious what an actual working 1840s book critic sounded like, rather than the more famous treatise she’s remembered for. Her range is wide — she wrote as seriously about music’s power to move people as she did about Goethe or American poetry, and that range is part of why Emerson considered her his greatest single influence.
At Home and Abroad; or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe
A posthumous collection of Fuller’s dispatches for the New-York Tribune, including her American travel writing and, most significantly, her reporting from Rome during the 1848–49 revolution, where she was one of the only journalists, of any nationality, covering the siege from inside the city.
Her actual book-length history of the Roman Revolution was lost forever in the shipwreck that killed her, along with the manuscript she’d been carrying home to publish. This collection of her surviving dispatches is the closest thing we have left to that lost work, and it’s a genuinely sobering read once you know what didn’t survive the crossing.
What The Marginalian has written about her
Maria Popova has returned to Fuller repeatedly on The Marginalian, and calls her one of the central figures in her own book Figuring. A few insights worth knowing before you read her:
Fuller talked her way into the Harvard library’s collection to research Summer on the Lakes — no woman had previously been granted access beyond a guided tour, and the visit shaped both the book and her lifelong insistence on evidence over assumption.
By her late thirties, Fuller had edited The Dial, championed prison reform and Black voting rights as the only woman in her newsroom, and reported from a besieged Rome while seven months pregnant — a run of firsts that Popova argues shaped an entire generation’s literary and political sensibility.
Read: “Trailblazing Writer and Feminist Margaret Fuller on the Social Value of Intellectual Labor”
Fuller signed her most influential Dial and Tribune editorials with a single star rather than her name, originally to hide her gender from biased readers — until the star itself became recognized as her mark of authority.
Long before she became known as a political and feminist writer, Fuller wrote at length about music as a force capable of changing culture itself — a strand of her thinking that rarely makes it into summaries of her work.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Margaret Fuller?
Margaret Fuller was an American journalist, literary critic, and transcendentalist writer, best known for Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), widely considered the first major feminist work published in the United States. She was also America’s first full-time female book critic and its first female foreign war correspondent.
What is Margaret Fuller’s most famous book?
Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), which argued for women’s equal intellectual and vocational freedom and directly influenced organizers of the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention.
How did Margaret Fuller die?
She died on July 19, 1850, at age 40, in a shipwreck off Fire Island, New York, while returning to the United States from Italy with her husband, Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, and their infant son, Angelo. All three drowned. The manuscript of her history of the Roman Revolution, which she was carrying home to publish, was lost in the wreck and never recovered.
Was Margaret Fuller married?
Yes. She married Giovanni Angelo Ossoli, a young Italian revolutionary, while reporting from Rome during the 1848–49 Roman Revolution. Some historians debate whether they were formally married before their son’s birth, though Fuller referred to herself as his wife.
Why was Margaret Fuller important to the transcendentalist movement?
She was the first editor of The Dial, the movement’s central literary journal, and Ralph Waldo Emerson later said he considered her his greatest influence. She was the only woman among the movement’s leading figures, which included Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
What books did Margaret Fuller write?
Her major works are Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 (1844), Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), and Papers on Literature and Art (1846), published in her lifetime. At Home and Abroad, a collection of her dispatches, was published posthumously in 1856.
Is the Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli reliable?
Not entirely. This 1852 biography, assembled after her death by Emerson and two other friends, heavily edited and in places rewrote her letters and journals, reportedly because the editors doubted her fame would last and were not focused on accuracy. Modern scholars rely more heavily on her original letters and dispatches than on this early biography.
Did Margaret Fuller influence the women’s rights movement?
Yes. Woman in the Nineteenth Century is frequently cited as a foundational text of American feminism, and later activists including Susan B. Anthony named Fuller as a direct inspiration.
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Written by Lisanne Swart
Lisanne curates books for curious readers at lisannewart.com, publishing original reading lists, author deep-dives, and honest recommendations since 2021. Read more about Lisanne.
