This is the second volume in the first full-scale scholarly edition of Thoreau's correspondence in more than half a century. When completed, the edition's three volumes will include every extant letter written or received by Thoreau-in all, almost 650 letters, roughly 150 more than in any previous edition, including dozens that have never before been published. Correspondence 2 contains 246 letters, 124 written by Thoreau and 122 written to him. Sixty-three are collected here for the first time; of these, forty-three have never before been published. During the period covered by this volume, Thoreau wrote the works that form the foundation of his modern reputation. A number of letters reveal the circumstances surrounding the publication of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers in May 1849 and Walden in August 1854, as well as the essays "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849; now known as "Civil Disobedience") and "Slavery in Massachusetts" (1854), and two series, "An Excursion to Canada" (1853) and "Cape Cod" (1855). Writing and lecturing brought Thoreau a small group of devoted fans, most notably Daniel Ricketson, an independently wealthy Quaker and abolitionist who became a faithful correspondent. The most significant body of letters in the volume are those Thoreau wrote to Harrison Gray Otis Blake, a friend and disciple who elicited intense and complex discussions of the philosophical, ethical, and moral issues Thoreau explored throughout his life. Following every letter, annotations identify correspondents, individuals mentioned, and books quoted, and describe events to which the letters refer. A historical introduction characterizes the letters and connects them with the events of Thoreau's life, a textual introduction lays out the editorial principles and procedures followed, and a general introduction discusses the history of the publication of Thoreau's correspondence. Proper names, publications, events, and ideas found in both the letters and the annotations are included in the index, which provides full access to the contents of the volume.

This is the inaugural volume in the first full-scale scholarly edition of Thoreau's correspondence in more than half a century. When completed, the edition's three volumes will include every extant letter written or received by Thoreau--in all, almost 650 letters, roughly 150 more than in any previous edition, including dozens that have never before been published.

"Correspondence 1" contains 163 letters, ninety-six written by Thoreau and sixty-seven to him. Twenty-five are collected here for the first time; of those, fourteen have never before been published. These letters provide an intimate view of Thoreau's path from college student to published author. At the beginning of the volume, Thoreau is a Harvard sophomore; by the end, some of his essays and poems have appeared in periodicals and he is at work on "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers" and "Walden." The early part of the volume documents Thoreau's friendships with college classmates and his search for work after graduation, while letters to his brother and sisters reveal warm, playful relationships among the siblings. In May 1843, Thoreau moves to Staten Island for eight months to tutor a nephew of Emerson's. This move results in the richest period of letters in the volume: thirty-two by Thoreau and nineteen to him. From 1846 through 1848, letters about publishing and lecturing provide details about Thoreau's first years as a professional author. As the volume closes, the most ruminative and philosophical of Thoreau's epistolary relationships begins, that with Harrison Gray Otis Blake. Thoreau's longer letters to Blake amount to informal lectures, and in fact Blake invited a small group of friends to readings when these arrived.

Following every letter, annotations identify correspondents, individuals mentioned, and books quoted, cited, or alluded to, and describe events to which the letters refer. A historical introduction characterizes the letters and connects them with the events of Thoreau's life, a textual introduction lays out the editorial principles and procedures followed, and a general introduction discusses the significance of letter-writing in the mid-nineteenth century and the history of the publication of Thoreau's letters. Finally, a thorough index provides comprehensive access to the letters and annotations.

This second volume publishes all of Margaret Fuller's letters written from 1839 to 1841—the years in which she first began to achieve fame as a writer and an editor. Addressed to such eminent figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, William H. Channing, Elizabeth Peabody, and Frederic H. hedge as well as to Fuller's family and intimate friends, these letters record the years of her involvement in the Transcendentalist Club—a group of liberal clergymen and writers who gathered to discuss theology, literature, and philosophy. In 1839 the Club decided to found a magazine, The Dial; Fuller became the editor, and at last she had a forum for her innovative views of literature and of literary criticism. These are also the years of her famous "conversations" for women—weekly discussions of mythology which were attended by twenty-five of the most prominent women in the area. The letters chronicle the most emotionally turbulent period in her life. In the course of little more than a year she was rejected by the man she loved, Samuel G. Ward, who then married her close friend Anna Barker; she was rebuffed by Emerson as well; and she underwent a profound religious experience that she felt changed her life.

This single-volume selection of the letters of Margaret Fuller affords a unique opportunity for renewed acquaintance with a great American thinker of the Transcendentalist circle. The letters represent Fuller at all stages of her life and career, and show her engaged as literary critic, as translator and as champion of German literature and thought, as teacher, as travel writer, as literary editor, as journalist, as feminist, as revolutionary, as wife and mother. "My Heart Is a Large Kingdom", unlike previous collections, includes only letters transcribed from Fuller's manuscripts and does not reproduce correspondence known only from printed sources and copies in hands other than Fuller's.

Among the recipients of the letters in this generous selection are such literary and cultural figures as Bronson Alcott, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Arthur Hugh Clough, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Giuseppe Mazzini, Giovanni Angelo Ossoli (Fuller's husband), George Ripley, and Henry David Thoreau. Taken together, the letters serve as a chronicle of Fuller's lifetime and provide glimpses into her thoughts and feelings during the years of the "Conversations", Dial, and the revolution in Rome.

This single-volume selection of the letters of Margaret Fuller invites acquaintance with a great American thinker of the Transcendentalist circle.

The fifth volume of the collected letters of Margaret Fuller traces a period of great emotional turbulence, reflecting the personal struggles she faced in motherhood and the external strife of revolutionary Europe in 1848. The book opens as she takes up residence in Rome, where she continued to write essays for the New-York Daily Tribune and kept up a steady flow of commentary on the political situation for her family and friends. Among Fuller's correspondents are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Giovanni Ossoli, William Wetmore Story, Giuseppe Mazzini, Horace Greeley, George William Curtis, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Many of the letters were written in Italian and are translated here for the first time. Since Fuller was more centrally involved in the Italian Risorgimento than any other American, they constitute an entirely new documentary source for historians of nineteenth-century Italy.

From 1844 to 1847 Margaret Fuller served as review editor for Horace Greeley's New-York Herald Tribune-and herself reviewed books by Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville among others-and published Papers on Literature and Art, a volume of her own essays. She became known as something of a radical in literary circles, allying herself with George Sand, Emerson, and Goethe, and with the Young America poets, Evert A. Duyckinck, Cornelius Mathews, and William Gilmore Simms. In August 1846 Fuller left for Europe with her friends Marcus and Rebecca Spring. Her letters describe her meetings there with Thomas Carlyle, George Sand, Lamennais, and the aging Wordsworth, and with such political figures as the exiles Giuseppe Mazzini and Adam Mickiewicz. Often the letters expand upon topics addressed in her public writing. Her life in these years, however, is dominated by her love for the German businessman James Nathan. The nearly fifty letters she wrote to him in 1845 and 1846 show her startling willingness to take a subservient role and her longing for emotional acceptance. Dreams of a lasting relationship with Nathan end in Europe with his betrothal to another woman, but by the spring of 1847 she had recovered from her deep disappointment and gone on to achieve great personal growth, both in her consciousness of herself as a woman and in political awareness. By the time this volume comes to a close she has met Giovanni Ossoli, a man who shares her ideals and offers her emotional security.

The third volume of this major series opens with Fuller's decision in early 1842 to resign her post as editor of The Dial, after she realized she would never be paid for her work there. It closes with her in New York, having accepted Horace Greeley's invitation to work as a book reviewer for The Daily Tribune. Her position was nearly without precedent for a woman, and she wrote enthusiastically of her job that it provided "a more various view of life than any I ever before was in." She found herself in a larger world: the new tasks of daily journalism replaced the demands of The Dial, and a mass audience replaced her coterie of intellectual readers. These were prolific years for Fuller, during which she wrote on a wide variety of subjects, and the letters chronicle her progress on a number of projects, among them her travel book, Summer on the Lakes, in 1843, which grew out of a trip to the Midwest; her translation of Bettina von Arnim's Die Gunderode; and her essays on contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama. She devoted the fall of 1844 to expanding "The Great Lawsuit," an essay she had written for The Dial; the letters document how the piece grew to become her most important book-Woman in the Nineteenth Century, a provocative study of woman's role in American life.

Correspondence by the American critic, journalist and feminist traces her intellectual development from age seven to twenty-eight.