Woman in the Nineteenth Century

THE BEST AMERICAN ROMANTIC WOMAN WRITER IS IN ONE NOVEL

Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century [1845]is one of the first US books that looked at the whole sweep of world history from a woman's point of view. It was based on her article that she'd written for the Dial magazine [which she'd edited along with Emerson]called the "Great Lawsuit". This book is than one of the basic works that formed and influenced the Women's Rights Movement in the US. The famous early US women's rights meeting held in Seneca Falls, NY. came just a few years after this book. Fuller's view of women throughout the ages also provides an historical perspective to the political and philosophical views of Mary Wollstonecraft's: The Vindication of the Rights of Women[1792]. But, this work is also interesting because of its international and cross-cultural perspective. And this Norton Critical edition is also preferable because unlike most [it not all] of the available editions it reprints the 1845 edition. This was the only one that Fuller herself prepared for publication. Most of the other editions continue to reprint later editions especially the 1855 edition which was prepared by Fuller's brother and included his own editing of the text. The Norton edition is further enhanced by a useful introduction, good notes and essays on the work. Until there is a much needed complete & scholarly edition of all of Fuller's works [or even a Library of America edition of Fuller's works]to match the recent complete edition of her letters this is the best available edition of Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century.