Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Harriet Martineau
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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.
A hostile notice by T. H. Huxley
in the Westminster Review (owned by John Chapman
) dismissed Lewes as an amateur and ranked his book below Harriet Martineau
's recent abridgement of Comte. George Eliot
Leisure and Society
Eliza Lynn Linton
In London, Eliza Lynn drank in artistic life. She championed the singing of Jenny Lind
against those who preferred Alboni or Malibran. She performed for Samuel Laurence
the role of uninformed art critic or foolometer...
Education
Marie Belloc Lowndes
MBL
's formal schooling was minimal. Mrs Shiel, who ran a class she attended which catered mostly to children of Canons of Westminster, claimed to be a follower of Pestalozzi
, yet mocked Marie for...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Anne Marsh
Harriet Martineau
was amazed when AM
first read her one of these tales, The Admiral's Daughter, and felt that their hostess later that evening (Sarah Wedgwood
) must have been almost equally amazed...
Literary responses
Anne Marsh
In 1851 the Athenæum reviewer of Ravenscliffe still thought of The Admiral's Daughter as having heralded a remarkable addition to the phalanx of English authoresses.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1255 (1851): 1198
The preface writer for the cheap reprint...
Literary responses
Louisa Anne Meredith
Critic Dale Spender
, however, has celebrated her as a writer: it is the wit and the entertainment value of her writing which help to capture some of the (often incongruous) elements of early colonial...
Residence
Eliza Meteyard
On 26 June 1848 she wrote to Leigh Hunt
from (apparently) Lamb Street in Spitalfields. For some years her home was the house of Margaret Gillies
(a successful artist, portraitist, and feminist, who lived...
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...
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.
Rose, Phyllis. Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages. Alfred A. Knopf.
103, 105, 116
Friends, Associates
Mary Russell Mitford
She knew most of the literary women of her day, including Felicia Hemans
(who wrote to ask her for an autograph),
L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, editor. The Friendships of Mary Russell Mitford as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary Correspondents. Hurst and Blackett.
Mitford, Mary Russell. The Life of Mary Russell Mitford: Told by Herself in Letters To Her Friends. Editor L’Estrange, Alfred Guy Kingham, Harper and Brothers.