Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
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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,
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, 1877, pp. 2: 131 - 596.
"Harriet Martineau" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/Harriet_Martineau_by_Richard_Evans.jpg/822px-Harriet_Martineau_by_Richard_Evans.jpg.
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
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, 1996.
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, 1847.
7
She sums up her position on Mesmerism: by...
Textual Production
Charlotte Mew
Her essay addresses several works by women writers: Sophia Lee
's The Recess, Emily Finch
's Last Days of Mary Stuart, Charlotte Yonge
's Unknown to History, and Harriet Martineau
's The Anglers of the Dove.
Mew, Charlotte. Collected Poems and Prose. Editor Warner, Val, Carcanet and Virago, 1981.
378-9, 381
Textual Production
Mary Howitt
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, 1952.
Here Kennedy argues that entertainment and enjoyment are valuable aims for the novel. She maintains that the novelist is, in essence, a storyteller, but the storyteller-novelist has been excluded by a literary society that devalues...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Jane Welsh Carlyle
Nor was she entirely charmed by her husband's lady admirers,
Carlyle, Jane Welsh. Letters and Memorials of Jane Welsh Carlyle. Editors Carlyle, Thomas and James Anthony Froude, Longmans, Green, 1883, 3 vols.
1: 66
though they make perfect fodder for her caricatures. To her close friend John Sterling
, Jane writes: You cannot fancy what a way...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Flora Tristan
One chapter, entitled English Women, criticizes British social systems, and details the consequences women suffer because of the indissolubility of marriage.
Tristan, Flora. Flora Tristan’s London Journal, 1840. Translators Palmer, Dennis and Giselle Pincetl, Charles River Books, 1980.
GE
discounts the puffery that women authors receive from critics, claiming that praise of women's work is in inverse proportion to their ability: But if they are inclined to resent our plainness of speech, we...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Eva Figes
Though she mentions such writers as Eliza Haywood
and Mary Davys
, she begins her detailed discussion with the 1790s (a time which twenty years on would be regarded as somewhat late in the history...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Mary Stott
Why, Stott wonders, do national newspapers print so few leading articles by women, when Harriet Martineau
was writing regular leaders for the Daily News back in the mid nineteenth century? Why has there never been...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Eliza Cook
Eliza Cook's Journal takes the form of discrete essays by EC
and others; poems, too, were included. The language is informal and conversational, though a heavy use of quotation-marks for words or phrases deemed in...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Jane Francesca Lady Wilde
It contains many previously published reviews and essays, including her thoughts on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers. In a review, JFLW
calls Harriet Martineauone of the cleverest female intellects of the age,
Wilde, Jane Francesca, Lady. Notes on Men, Women, and Books. Ward and Downey, 1891.
112
but finds...
Travel
Charlotte Brontë
CB
visited Harriet Martineau
at her home The Knoll, in the Lake District, where she asked her host to mesmerize her.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press, 1994.