Bright Circle

Reviews / Votes

In Bright Circle, Randall Fuller shines a light on the women behind - and before - the male philosophers of 19th-century Massachusetts. * New York Times * Filled with coruscating insights, Bright Circle reintroduces the women who helped create one of America's most exciting and progressive intellectual movements. * Peggy Kurkowski, Foreword * In gorgeous prose, Randall Fuller tells these women's stories with rigor but also with curiosity and compassion. In short, Bright Circle is both scholarly and deeply moving. * Open Letters Review * They say that history is written by the victors, you know...the men. Usually books about the flowering of New England leave out the extraordinary Peabody sisters, the irresistible Margaret Fuller, the Alcott girls, Mary Moody Emerson and the two Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emersons to name a few. In intimate, dazzling language that brings these women to life, Randall Fuller's stories transcend the predictable parade of whales, cobbled Boston streets, scummy ponds, Salem witches and gabled houses creating a compelling story of how our literature was written. * Susan Cheever, Author of Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography and American Bloomsbury (Simon & Schuster) * Beautifully written and thoroughly researched, Bright Circle introduces readers--many perhaps for the first time--to the brilliant and fierce women of the Transcendentalist movement. With intertwined biographies of Mary Moody Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia Peabody, Lydia Emerson, and Margaret Fuller, Randall Fuller provides a signal contribution to the study of the women of this important intellectual and artistic movement. * Justine S. Murison, Professor of English, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign * Randall Fuller offers fresh portraits of five women whose lives intersected at the heart of the transcendentalist movement, and he defines that heart as Boston rather than Concord, a place of collaboration rather than solitude. Expanding on recent recovery work, he interprets from the rich legacy of these women's letters and diaries as well as the surviving record of Margaret Fuller's Conversations at Elizabeth Peabody's bookshop. The result is wonderfully readable, as well as an advance in our understanding of both transcendentalist thought and pre-feminist questioning. * Phyllis Cole, Author of Mary Moody Emerson and the Origins of Transcendentalism (Oxford University Press) * ...Fuller's book shows that these bright women were wholly, gloriously human. * Lydia Moland, American Scholar * The text is written with engaging and descriptive prose that incorporates thorough footnotes and indexes. It also makes effective use of numerous color illustrations and plates depicting relevant and interesting primary sources. Overall, Bright Circle is meticulously researched and guides the reader clearly through the ample primary and secondary source material used. * C. Huffaker, CHOICE * ... Mr. Fuller lets his characters speak for themselves, cheering them on from the sidelines. * Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal * A "deeply satisfying... tribute to a set of 19th-century women who made an art of contrarian thinking". * Christoph Irmscher, Wall Street Journal * Randall Fuller's "Bright Circle: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism"... argues that the history of Transcendentalism has long been distorted by an undue stress on its marquee figures, all of them male. Instead,... the movement owes just as much to its female participants, very much including Margaret Fuller. * James Marcus, The New Yorker *