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.
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
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,
Jane Francesca, Lady Wilde,. Notes on Men, Women, and Books. Ward and Downey.
112
but finds...
Textual Features
Mary Anne Jevons
An anonymous preface dated from Liverpool in October 1830 said that this annual would not set out to rival more splendid ones: it would offer mostly devotional poems, and none that were not improving. MAJ
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...
Textual Features
Christian Isobel Johnstone
Johnstone's Edinburgh Magazine was heavily political in content, while Tait's was designed to have greater appeal to the general reader.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Between 1832 and 1846 (when she retired) CIJ
contributed over four hundred articles to the...
Travel
Annie Keary
Their first base was Alexandria, but AK
also travelled a great deal. She rode out through the desert to visit the tombs of the Caliphs near Cairo, visited a harem (where she found...
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
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
...
Literary responses
Mary Ann Kelty
Reviewers praised this novel for its depiction of character and its intimate knowledge of the human heart.The Monthly Magazine singled out its impeccable morality, suitable for a young and female readership.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
To Harriet Martineau
Literary responses
Mary Ann Kelty
She sent a copy of this book to Harriet Martineau
, who found it painfully impressive to read. Martineau noted great differences between Kelty and herself in their approach to systems of religion and philosophy...
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.
Marshall, Dorothy. Fanny Kemble. Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
93
She also met Harriet Martineau
while in the USA.
Residence
Fanny Kemble
They moved to Butler Place, six miles outside Philadelphia, in January 1835. Harriet Martineau
's visits did not diminish FK
's sense of intellectual loneliness in Philadelphia.
Marshall, Dorothy. Fanny Kemble. Weidenfeld and Nicholson.
109
After four months of marriage and...
Textual Production
Fanny Kemble
One critic argues that FK
equated her life on the stage with a kind of slavery and therefore developed a keen sympathy for those in bondage; however, the actual conditions of slavery were probably quite...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Margaret Kennedy
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...