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.
EC
, however, ascribes the formative moments in her intellectual development to other sources. She counts among her early influences and inspirations writers Harriet Martineau
and Anne Trelawny
, and naturalist and artist Colonel Hamilton Smith
Friends, Associates
George Eliot
In addition to his intellectual heterodoxy, Charles Bray was a sexual nonconformist. He had several illegitimate children, of whom he and his wife adopted at least one. GE
may or may not have known about...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Gaskell
She meanwhile sustained her usual energetic and gossipy flow of correspondence with a wide range of literary and personal connections. She got caught up in the speculation surrounding the split between Effie
and John Ruskin
Friends, Associates
Sophia Jex-Blake
After the riot, the women received support from several notable people, including Frances Power Cobbe
and Harriet Martineau
. Martineau supported SJB
into the future as well: she sent her a small monetary contribution aimed...
Friends, Associates
Anne Marsh
Before her marriage Anne Caldwell (later AM
) seems to have lived in close ties of friendship with the women of the Wedgwood and Darwin families, including Sarah
, wife of Josiah Wedgwood
. She...
Friends, Associates
George Eliot
At the beginning of February GE
had already been hoping that her friendship with Parkes (a dear, ardent, honest creature) would be close.
Ashton, Rosemary. George Eliot: A Life. Hamish Hamilton.
95
A couple of years later Parkes went against her...
CC
remained a close friend of her early passion Catherine Gore
.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
She was also acquainted with Mary Russell Mitford
, whom she described as priggy,
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
and Harriet Martineau
Friends, Associates
Annie Keary
For years AK
's dearest wish was to become a friend of Harriet Martineau
, whose writing she immensely admired. Later, however, she began to feel there was something in Martineau's character or imagination that...
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...
Friends, Associates
Mary Ann Kelty
Little is known of any literary contacts of MAK
. She met and became a friend of Barbara Hofland
, and in the early 1830s she sought [the] acquaintance by letter of Harriet Martineau
...
As her father
established himself socially and politically within the Dalston community, she became involved in London's literary and intellectual circles. Among those she met, William James Linton
, John Stuart Mill
, and...
Chapman, Maria Weston, and Harriet Martineau. “Memorials of Harriet Martineau”. Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography, James R. Osgood, 1877, pp. 2: 131 - 596.
Martineau, Harriet. “Miss Martineau on Mesmerism”. Athenæum, No. 891-895, pp. 1070 - 1174 passim.
Martineau, Harriet. “On Female Education”. The Monthly Repository, Vol.
18
, pp. 77-81.
Martineau, Harriet. Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated. Charles Fox, 1834.
Martineau, Harriet. Retrospect of Western Travel. Saunders and Otley, 1838.
Martineau, Harriet. Retrospect of Western Travel. Haskell House, 1969.