SOURCE: A review of Woman in the Nineteenth Century, in Brownson's Quarterly Review Vol. 2, No. 2, April, 1845, pp. 249-57.

An American clergyman, editor, and essayist, Brownson was a prolific writer whose work was centrally concerned with the quest for religious truth and belief in justice and political liberty. In the following review, he charges that Woman in the Nineteenth Century possesses neither style nor structure, and rejects on religious grounds Fuller's call for women's equality.

MISS FULLER belongs to the class . . . of Transcendentalists, of which sect she is the chieftainess. She has a broader and richer nature man Mr. [Theodore] Parker, greater logical ability, and deeper poetic feeling; more boldness, sincerity, and frankness, and perhaps equal literary attainments. But at bottom they are brother and sister, children of the same father, belong to the same school, and in general harmonize in their views, aims, and tendencies. Their...