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.
JW
visited Harriet Martineau
at her home, The Knoll, in Ambleside. They paid a call on Wordsworth
, whom Julia found conceited and disagreeable.
Wedgwood, Barbara, and Hensleigh Wedgwood. The Wedgwood Circle, 1730-1897: Four Generations of a Family and Their Friends. Studio Vista.
254
Wedgwood, Barbara, and Hensleigh Wedgwood. The Wedgwood Circle, 1730-1897: Four Generations of a Family and Their Friends. Studio Vista.
253-4
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Charles
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
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
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
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...
Lightbown, Ronald W., and Eliza Meteyard. “Introduction”. The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Cornmarket Press.
The difficulties of social life for unattached women are visible in her regret and anxiety over...
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.