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.
Joanna Baillie
(a well qualified judge) thought few people have so many friends as EF
, and that they all warmly esteemed as well as loving her.
Baillie, Joanna. The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie. Editor Slagle, Judith Bailey, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press.
2: 699
At first meeting, Fletcher did not...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
CB
saw a resemblance between Emily and both Gaskell and Harriet Martineau
, to whom she also had her publishers send a copy of Shirley.
Barker, Juliet. The Brontës. St Martin’s Press.
615
Gaskell, Elizabeth. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Editor Shelston, Alan, Penguin.
392
Friends, Associates
Anna Brownell Jameson
Lady Byron subsequently introduced Jameson to Joanna Baillie
, and Jameson in turn introduced Lady Byron to her friend Harriet Martineau
.
Thomas, Clara. Love and Work Enough: The Life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press.
91
Friends, Associates
Catherine Crowe
CC
had already become a friend of Sydney Smith
and his family. In Edinburgh she became friendly with members of various intellectual circles, including astronomer John Pringle Nichol
, chemist Samuel Brown
, artist David Scott
Friends, Associates
Anna Letitia Barbauld
The literary society of ALB
's time was, as biographer Betsy Rodgers notes, small and intimate.
Rodgers, Betsy. Georgian Chronicle: Mrs Barbauld and her Family. Methuen.
80
Writers all knew each other and kept in touch; those who did not live in London visited frequently...
Friends, Associates
Margaret Fuller
MF
's circle of friends and associates included many of the of the pre-eminent thinkers and writers of her day. She maintained a vision of friendship that demanded total loyalty and sought integrity, sensitivity, and...
Friends, Associates
Elizabeth Rigby
Her father's wide social connections brought the children into contact with many distinguished families, such as the Taylors, Meadows, and Martineaus (of whom the future writer and political economist Harriet
was a little older than...
Johnston, Judith. Anna Jameson: Victorian, Feminist, Woman of Letters. Scolar Press.
3
Friends, Associates
Linda Villari
LV
and her husband were both friends of Vernon Lee
, accepting her hospitality and moving in the same circles.
Gunn, Peter. Vernon Lee: Violet Paget, 1856-1935. Oxford University Press.
96
Lee corresponded with LV
from the late 1870s to the early 1880s and discussed...
Friends, Associates
Maria Callcott
During the early years of her first marriage, between her time in India and in Italy, Maria Graham (later MC
) met Jane Marcet
and the publisher John Murray
.
Gotch, Rosamund Brunel. Maria, Lady Callcott, The Creator of ’Little Arthur’. J. Murray.
153-4, 166
Then or later...
Friends, Associates
Charlotte Brontë
Numerous friends and acquaintances of CB
wrote tributes or obituaries which initiated the legend of the Brontës and Charlotte in particular: Harriet Martineau
in the Daily News on April 6; Matthew Arnold
in a short...
Friends, Associates
Jane Welsh Carlyle
Some time after 1835 the Carlyles met Harriet Martineau
. While Martineau took to Thomas, she found Jane coquettish and disliked her tendency to interrupt abstract philosophical conversations with little jokes & wanting notice.
Skabarnicki, Anne M. “Two Faces of Eve: The Literary Personae of Harriet Martineau and Jane Welsh Carlyle”. The Carlyle Annual, Vol.
11
, pp. 15-30.
20
Friends, Associates
Margaret Fuller
Her travels in England introduced her to Mary Howitt
and Thomas Carlyle
, and she visited her old acquaintance Harriet Martineau
. In Paris she had significant meetings with George Sand
and the Polish poet...