Called by herself "the American Corinne," in analogy with Madame de Staël's feminist heroine and later referred to as the "Margaret-ghost" by Henry James because of the haunting fascination she held for the nineteenth century, Margaret Fuller has continued to fascinate twentieth-century readers as well. Although she was best known during her own time for her stimulating conversation and is remembered during ours for her association with the Transcendentalists, Fuller is much more important than these views suggest. A perceptive literary critic, she was as well a capable reporter and a social and political realist. Beginning her public career as the first editor of the Dial, the periodical founded and published by the Transcendentalists, Fuller went on to work for Horace Greeley's New-York Daily Tribune, becoming the first woman journalist for a major American newspaper and the first American foreign correspondent. Always writing hastily and carelessly...