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.
Her essay The Preaching Epidemic in Sweden appeared at the end of Harriet Martineau
's highly controversial Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development, late 1851.
Woodring, Carl Ray. Victorian Samplers: William and Mary Howitt. University of Kansas Press.
139
Textual Production
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
CET
published Mesmerism: A Letter to Miss Martineau (whose letters on this topic in the Athenæum had begun to appear on 23 November).
British Library Catalogue. http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=0&tab=local_tab&dstmp=1489778087340&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&fromLo.
Khorana, Meena, and Judith Gero John, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 163. Gale Research.
309
Textual Production
Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna
Responding here to Martineau
's public interest in the healing powers of mesmerism, CET
writes with the purpose of saving Martineau's soul from this Satanic power.
Tonna, Charlotte Elizabeth. Mesmerism. W. S. Martien.
One critic argues that FK
equated her life on the stage with a kind of slavery and therefore developed a keen sympathy for those in bondage; however, the actual conditions of slavery were probably quite...
Textual Production
Adelaide Procter
Here AP
's wide literary connections paid off handsomely. Contributors to The Victoria Regia included some of the most prominent names in literature of the day, mingled with less prominent writers who were also feminists:...
Textual Production
Frances Isabella Duberly
Selina was to have a free hand about printing this letter in as many papers as she liked, but preferably including the Daily News (the paper of Charles Dickens
and Harriet Martineau
) or the Herald.
Textual Production
Florence Nightingale
FN
corresponded with Harriet Martineau
, outlining the case against the goverment project which became the Contagious Diseases Acts.
Bishop, William John, and Sue Goldie. A Bio-Bibliography of Florence Nightingale. Dawsons for the International Council of Nurses.
106
Textual Production
Rosamund Marriott Watson
RMW
was by this time establishing a name for herself as an poet. In 1890 Elizabeth A. Sharp
included three of her poems in Women Poets of the Victorian Era. The anthology also features...
Textual Production
Lucie Duff Gordon
Aware now that her letters might reach published form, LDG
reflects in her writing more consciousness of the way she wanted to represent herself and her surroundings. Having read her second cousin Harriet Martineau
's...
Textual Features
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
This powerful evocation of a female African-American slave, who challenges her pursuers and thereby forestalls her capture moments before she dies, draws on EBB
's awareness of the Barrett family's history as Jamaican slaveholders. A...
Nightingale, Florence. Ever Yours, Florence Nightingale. Editors Vicinus, Martha and Bea Nergaard, Harvard University Press.
443-5
Textual Features
Isabella Bird
This early travel narrative is immature in comparison with IB
's later writing. It repeats accepted stereotypes about Americans through the voice of a tentative female traveller who, in turn, conforms to the stereotype of...
MS
discussed with her correspondents emotions, ideas, politics, and books. In 1839 she voiced admiration for Jane Austen
's humour, vividness and correctness, but added that Harriet Martineau
had higher philosophical views.
Crook, Nora. “Sleuthing towards a Mary Shelley Canon”. Women’s Writing, Vol.
6
, No. 3, pp. 413-24.
424n29
Timeline
April 1862: The Senate of the University of London voted...
Building item
April 1862
The Senate of the University of London voted against allowing women into their medical degree programme.
1864: Famous Girls who have become Illustrious...
Writing climate item
1864
Famous Girls who have become Illustrious Women: Forming Models for Imitation by the Young Women of England, a very popular book of biographical sketches by John M. Darton
, was published.
October 1864: The Working Women's College opened in Queen...
31 December 1869: The Daily News published the Ladies' Protest,...
Building item
31 December 1869
The Daily News published the Ladies' Protest, a document signed by 124 women which outlined their arguments for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts.
October 1870: Sir Henry Storks, a supporter of the Contagious...
National or international item
October 1870
Sir Henry Storks
, a supporter of the Contagious Diseases Acts, was defeated in his second by-election of the year, this time in Colchester.
April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...
Writing climate item
April 1879
James Murray
—editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.
1886: The working-class, popular, evangelical writer...
Women writers item
1886
The working-class, popular, evangelical writer Marianne Farningham
(born Mary Ann Hearne or Hearn
) published as Eva Hope a book called Queens of Literature of the Victorian Era which reveals unexpected feminist sympathies.
1886: Eva Hope's Queens of Literature of the Victorian...
Martineau, Harriet. Health, Husbandry and Handicraft. Bradbury and Evans, 1861.
Martineau, Harriet. Homes Abroad. Charles Fox, 1832.
Martineau, Harriet. Household Education. Edward Moxon, 1849.
Martineau, Harriet, and Michael R. Hill. How to Observe Morals and Manners. Transaction Publishers, 1995.
Martineau, Harriet. How to Observe. Morals and Manners. Charles Knight, 1838.
Martineau, Harriet. Illustrations of Political Economy. Charles Fox, 1834.
Martineau, Harriet. Illustrations of Political Economy: Selected Tales. Editor Logan, Deborah Anna, Broadview, 2004.
Martineau, Harriet. Illustrations of Taxation. Charles Fox, 1834.
Martineau, Harriet. “Introduction and Editorial Materials”. Selected Letters, edited by Valerie Sanders, Clarendon Press, 1990, pp. vii - xxxiii, 235.
Frawley, Maria H., and Harriet Martineau. “Introduction and Editorial Materials”. Life in the Sick-Room, Broadview Press, 2003, pp. 11 - 31, 161.
Logan, Deborah Anna, and Harriet Martineau. “Introduction and Editorial Materials”. Illustrations of Political Economy, Broadview, 2004, p. various pages.
Martineau, Harriet. Ireland. Charles Fox, 1832.
Martineau, Harriet. Letters from Ireland. John Chapman, 1852.
Martineau, Harriet. Letters on Mesmerism. Edward Moxon, 1845.
Atkinson, Henry George, and Harriet Martineau. Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development. John Chapman, 1851.
Martineau, Harriet. Life in the Sick-Room. Edward Moxon, 1844.
Martineau, Harriet. Life in the Sick-Room. Editor Frawley, Maria H., Broadview, 2003.
Martineau, Harriet. Life in the Wilds. Charles Fox, 1832.