In May of 1850, after four years abroad, Margaret Fuller set sail from Livorno to New York, bound for her native Massachusetts. She was just about to turn forty, and her stature in America was unique. In the space of a decade, she had invented a new vocation: the female public intellectual. Fuller’s intelligence had dazzled Emerson, who invited her to join the Transcendental Club and to edit its literary review, The Dial.