Finding Margaret Fuller by Allison Pataki

Publication March 19, 2024-Random House, Ballantine-Historical Fiction-416pp

Book Summary

Massachusetts, 1836. Young, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated “Sage of Concord,” to meet his coterie of enlightened friends shaping a nation in the throes of its own self-discovery. By the end of her stay, she will become “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s character of Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures into the woods of Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson himself. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and she finds her restless soul in need of new challenges and adventure.
 
And so she charts a singular course against a backdrop of dizzying historical drama: From Boston, where she hosts a women-only literary salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to the editorial meetings of The Dial magazine, where she hones her pen as its co-founder; to Harvard’s library, where she is the first woman to study within its walls; to the gritty New York streets where she spars with Edgar Allan Poe and reports on the writings of Frederick Douglass. Margaret defies conventions time and again as an activist for women and an advocate for humanity, earning admirers and scathing critics alike.
 
When the legendary Horace Greeley offers an assignment in Europe, Margaret again makes history as the first female foreign news correspondent, mingling with luminaries like Frederic Chopin, Walt Whitman, George Sand, and more. But it is in Rome where she finds a world of passion, romance, and revolution, taking a Roman count as a lover—and sparking an international scandal. Evolving yet again into the roles of mother and countess, Margaret enters a new fight for Italy’s unification.

Grateful Reader Review by Dorothy Schwab

I requested this novel because of the former writings of Allison Pataki, not because I knew immediately who Margaret Fuller was or what the title “finding” Margaret Fuller meant! I was surprised, impressed, and somewhat incensed that I’m just learning about her. I know of Pataki’s impeccable research from previous historical fiction novels, the latest, The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post.  Finding Margaret Fuller is likewise educational, entertaining, and even befuddling.  Readers will remember Ralph Waldo Emmerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott from high school English, but why not the name of Margaret Fuller?  She was central to the Transcendentalist movement, an author, the first woman to study in the halls of Harvard, the first female foreign news correspondent, and part of an international scandal! So, why haven’t we read about her life accomplishments or studied her writings?  

Allison Pataki begins with the end in mind, revealing Margaret Fuller’s tragic fate in the opening prologue. Margaret’s search for identity unfolds in five parts, told in first person. This provides an emotional connection so readers feel personally involved as Pataki recounts the bold, daring life of an educated, brilliant, single female in the mid-nineteenth century. The descriptive settings, like characters themselves, transport readers from the wooded lanes, wildflowers, and rivers of Massachusetts to the streets of NYC; from radical conversation salons for women in Boston, through Europe as a war correspondent and governess and finally, to the revolution in Italy. Margaret Fuller lived an amazing life; just not long enough. One writer explained her well, “How do you describe a Force?”  

So, thank you to Allison Pataki for “finding” Margaret Fuller, a trailblazer a century ahead of her time.