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.
Harriet Martineau
supposedly based the Ibbotson girls in Deerbrook, on the lives of Sarah
and Eliza
Flower.
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.
Stephenson, Harold William. The Author of Nearer, My God, to Thee (Sarah Flower Adams). Lindsey Press.
19
Eliza Bridell-Fox
(W. J. Fox's daughter and a particularly close friend of Sarah's sister Eliza Flower)...
Education
Sarah Flower Adams
In Harriet Martineau
's fictional account Sarah and her sister
received an erratic
Stephenson, Harold William. The Author of Nearer, My God, to Thee (Sarah Flower Adams). Lindsey Press.
19
education from Harlow village teachers and their father. As she described it, they were given bible lessons, and travelled frequently as...
Friends, Associates
Sarah Flower Adams
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...
Harriet Martineau
and SA
were fairly distantly related: Martineau's mother was John Taylor's first cousin, so Harriet and Sarah were second cousins.
Ross, Janet. Three Generations of Englishwomen. John Murray.
3-4
The Taylor and Martineau families gathered together from time to time.
Ross, Janet. Three Generations of Englishwomen. John Murray.
24-6
Intertextuality and Influence
Sarah Austin
Harriet Martineau
refers to SA
's essay in her influential article on Female Industry.
Martineau, Harriet. “Female Industry”. Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: Nineteenth-Century Writing by Women on Women, edited by Susan Hamilton, Broadview, pp. 29-73.
53
Literary responses
Joanna Baillie
The Chief Justice of Ceylon, Sir Alexander Johnstone
, asked that two of JB
's last plays be translated into Singalese.One—The Bride, A Tragedy (published in summer 1828), had a Singalese subject.
Quarterly Review. J. Murray.
38 (1828): 602
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...
Literary responses
Anna Letitia Barbauld
Miss Aikin's Poems sold five hundred copies in just over four months, and the second edition sold a similar number in a similar period. In September a third edition was announced.
McCarthy, William. Anna Letitia Barbauld, Voice of the Enlightenment. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
ALB
was a presence in the early poetry of Wordsworth
and Coleridge
, though they later distanced themselves from her so emphatically. Her work appeared in magazines in the USA before the end of the...
Literary responses
Isabella Beeton
IB
received an early letter of commendation from political economist Harriet Martineau
, who had published books—such as Household Education—along the same lines. Although she disliked the sections on manners and (as a homeopath)...
Education
Matilda Betham-Edwards
Because of her mother's early death, MBE
, she said later, was largely self-educated, her teachers being plenty of the best books.
Black, Helen C. Notable Women Authors of the Day. D. Bryce.
MFB
was earning enough from her career in journalism to be able to support herself by her late teens. She established herself as a successful writer and editor for national dailies and a career journalist...
Timeline
February 1778: Franz Anton Mesmer, inventor of animal magnetism,...
Building item
February 1778
Franz Anton Mesmer
, inventor of animal magnetism, arrived in Paris to promote his theory.
22 August 1791: Thousands of blacks rebelled in Hispaniola:...
National or international item
22 August 1791
Thousands of blacks rebelled in Hispaniola: in the French-speaking part of the island (now called Haiti while the other part is called the Dominican Republic). This (also known as Sainte-Domingue or Santo Domingo)...
January 1806: The Monthly Repository, a Dissenting magazine,...
Writing climate item
January 1806
The Monthly Repository, a Dissenting magazine, began publication in London, edited by Robert Aspland
.
1830-42: Auguste Comte published Cours de philosophie...
Writing climate item
1830-42
Auguste Comte
published Cours de philosophie positive in six volumes.
January 1833: The first issues appeared of two Irish monthly...
Writing climate item
January 1833
The first issues appeared of two Irish monthly periodicals: the successful Dublin University Magazine and the short-lived Dublin University Review, and Quarterly Magazine.
1 August 1834: The Slavery Abolition Act or Emancipation...
National or international item
1 August 1834
The Slavery Abolition Act or Emancipation Bill came into effect in the British Empire.
6 July 1839: In A Diary in America, Frederick Marryat...
Writing climate item
6 July 1839
In A Diary in America, Frederick Marryat
promoted the stereotype that middle-class Americans adhered to a more strict paradigm of prudishness than their British counterparts, and apparently gave rise to the myth that Victorians...
3 May 1841: The London Library, established by Thomas...
By 6 November 1852: William Makepeace Thackeray published his...
Writing climate item
By 6 November 1852
William Makepeace Thackeray
published his historical novel, set at the time of the Jacobite uprising, The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne.
1853: The Mémoires du Général Toussaint L'Ouverture,...
Writing climate item
1853
The Mémoires du Général Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black leader who emerged from the rebellion in St Dominique (now Haiti), were published in Paris.
December 1855: Barbara Leigh Smith, later Bodichon, founded...
14 March 1856: A petition for Reform of the Married Women's...
National or international item
14 March 1856
A petitionfor Reform of the Married Women's Property Law, organized by the Married Women's Property Committee
and signed by many prominent women, was presented to both Houses of Parliament.
2 May 1857: A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened...
Building item
2 May 1857
A grand dome designed by Panizzi
was opened in what had been the central courtyard of the British Museum
.
Texts
Martineau, Harriet. A Manchester Strike. Charles Fox, 1832.
Martineau, Harriet. Addresses, With Prayers and Original Hymns. 1826.
Martineau, Harriet, and Vera Wheatley. “Appendix A: Harriet Martineau’s review of <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Villette</span>”;. The Life and Work of Harriet Martineau, Secker and Warburg, 1957, pp. 399-01.
Martineau, Harriet. Berkeley the Banker. Charles Fox, 1833.
Martineau, Harriet. “Female Industry”. Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors: Nineteenth-Century Writing by Women on Women, edited by Susan Hamilton, Broadview, 1995, pp. 29-73.
Martineau, Harriet. “Female Writers on Practical Divinity”. The Monthly Repository, Vol.
17
, pp. 593-6.
Martineau, Harriet. For Each and For All. Charles Fox, 1832.
Martineau, Harriet. For Each and For All. John W. Lovell Co., 1884.
Martineau, Harriet. Forest and Game-Law Tales. Edward Moxon, 1846.
Martineau, Harriet. French Wines and Politics. Charles Fox, 1833.
Martineau, Harriet. Guide to Windermere. J. Garnett, 1854.