Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Harriet Martineau
-
Standard Name: Martineau, Harriet
Birth Name: Harriet Martineau
Pseudonym: Discipulus
Pseudonym: A Lady
Pseudonym: H. M.
Pseudonym: From the Mountain
Pseudonym: An Invalid
Pseudonym: An Englishwoman
HM
began her career as a professional writer, which spanned more than four decades in the mid nineteenth century, with writing from a Unitarian perspective on religious matters. She made her name with her multi-volume series (initially twenty-five volumes, followed by further series) of narrative expositions of political economy. One of the founders of sociology, who believed that social affairs proceed according to great general laws, no less than natural phenomena,
Martineau, Harriet, and Gaby Weiner. Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography. Virago.
2: 245
she produced several major contributions to this emerging field. She wrote broadly in periodicals and regularly for a newspaper on social and political issues, and produced three books of observations emerging from her foreign travels. Although her two three-volume novels were not particularly successful, her work had a great impact on later Victorian fiction. She also wrote history, biography, and household manuals. Her advocacy of mesmerism and her atheism made some of her later writings controversial. In her eminently readable autobiography and other writings she presents a cogent analysis of conditions shaping the lives of Victorian women. Although she became hugely influential—one of the most prominent women writers of her day—HM
eschewed notions of genius. Her crucial contribution to Victorian feminist thought has frequently been overlooked.
Chapman, Maria Weston, and Harriet Martineau. “Memorials of Harriet Martineau”. Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, James R. Osgood, pp. 2: 131 - 596.
In early 1866 FN
signed John Stuart Mill
's petition for women's suffrage. She and Mill also exchanged a series of letters on the issue. Although she signed the petition, she thought that married women's...
Intertextuality and Influence
Florence Nightingale
Before leaving for Egypt, FN
consulted John Gardner Wilkinson
's Modern Egypt and Thebes as well as Harriet Martineau
's Eastern Life, Present and Past.
Brothers, Barbara, and Julia Gergits, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 166. Gale Research.
166: 271
Intertextuality and Influence
Florence Nightingale
The Edinburgh Medical Journal recognized Nightingale's contribution to this report, writing that she not only possessed the gift of acute perception, but . . . reasons with a strong, accurate, most logical, and, if we...
Literary responses
Florence Nightingale
Notes on Nursing has remained FN
's most influential work, in part because it was written on the assumption that nurses were capable of writing their own textbooks.
Dolan, Josephine A. Nursing In Society: A Historical Perspective. Saunders.
209
In 1860, the Quarterly Review observed...
Friends, Associates
Caroline Norton
Before her marriage CN
had formed a friendship with the Irish poet Tom Moore
, once a crony of her famous grandfather; this friendship endured into her middle age. It was also as Richard Brinsley...
politics
Caroline Norton
Thomas Noon Talfourd
gave notice early in 1837 of a House of Commons
motion on this subject, and the Bill was printed. But immediately after this CN
's husband relented and allowed her to see...
Textual Features
Ann Oakley
This book covers a great deal of ground. When it turns back from Modern Problems to A Brief History of Methodology its exemplars include Margaret Cavendish
(who also provides one of three opening epigraphs), the...
Friends, Associates
Bessie Rayner Parkes
BRP
knew personally and corresponded with many of the Victorian intelligentsia. In addition to her Langham Place associates already mentioned, her literary friends and acquaintances included Matilda Hays
, Harriet Martineau
, Anthony Trollope
,...
Publishing
C. E. Plumptre
CEP
's final publication, her essay On the Neglected Centenary of Harriet Martineau, appeared in the Westminster Review.
Plumptre, C. E. “On the Neglected Centenary of Harriet Martineau”. Westminster Review, Vol.