Poe's Quarrel with Boston Writers

Edgar Allan Poe
"Margaret Fuller," in The Works of Edgar A. Poe
New York: J. S. Redfield, 1850
Vol. 5 [originally published in Godey's Lady Book August 1846]
[Full text]

In this review essay on Fuller's work, Poe notes that Woman in the Nineteenth Century "had the good fortune to be warmly abused and chivalrously defended." While conceding that the work is "nervous, forcible, thoughtful, suggestive, brilliant, and to a certain extent scholar-like – for all that Miss Fuller produces is entitled to these epithets," Poe stops short of embracing what he sees as its radical views.

Boston Public Library, Rare Books & Manuscripts