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,
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.
Mary Anne Jevons
included three poems by MAB
in her little Liverpool publication The Sacred Offering. A Poetical Annual, 1834.
Jevons had launched this venture in 1831, and for the first two numbers all...
Cultural formation
Julia Wedgwood
JW
was born into that section of the English professional class which functioned as an intellectual and cultural elite. She was connected through her family with other Victorians strongly committed to spiritual and moral inquiry...
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, 1893.
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...
Education
Sarah Flower Adams
In Harriet Martineau
's fictional account Sarah and her sister
received an erratic
qtd. in
Stephenson, Harold William. The Author of Nearer, My God, to Thee (Sarah Flower Adams). Lindsey Press, 1922.
19
education from Harlow village teachers and their father. As she described it, they were given bible lessons, and travelled frequently as...
Education
Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Her aunt Julia was a great influence on BLSB
, who through her met Harriet Martineau
, Mary Somerville
, and Amelia Opie
.
Education
Jessie Boucherett
JB
's reading included Harriet Martineau
's The Industrial Position of Women in England, which prompted her interest in the feminist movement.
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, 1990.
Education
Frances Power Cobbe
Her continuing studies, particularly of theology, benefitted from access to Archbishop Marsh's Library
in Dublin (though it was ostensibly open only to gentlemen and graduates). Her reading at this period may have included Marian Evans, later George Eliot
Education
Fredrika Bremer
After FB became a published author, in the early 1830s, she embarked on an ambitious programme of reading, drawing on books in several languages. Her English friend Frances Lewin
helped her in studying James Mill
Family and Intimate relationships
Sarah Flower Adams
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, 1990.
Stephenson, Harold William. The Author of Nearer, My God, to Thee (Sarah Flower Adams). Lindsey Press, 1922.
19
Eliza Bridell-Fox
(W. J. Fox's daughter and a particularly close friend of Sarah's sister Eliza Flower)...
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Augusta Ward
MAW
's eldest child, Dorothy
, was born; Harriet Martineau
sent the baby a cot-blanket she had made.
Sutherland, John, b. 1938. Mrs. Humphry Ward. Clarendon Press, 1990.
59, 410
Ward, Mary Augusta. A Writer’s Recollections. Harper and Brothers, 1918.
298
Family and Intimate relationships
Mary Augusta Ward
From the time of her arrival in England, a major influence on the young Mary Arnold (later MAW
) was her aunt and godmother Jane Arnold
or Aunt K., a cultivated woman and friend...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sarah Austin
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, 1888, 2 vols.
3-4
The Taylor and Martineau families gathered together from time to time.
Ross, Janet. Three Generations of Englishwomen. John Murray, 1888, 2 vols.
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.
Darnton, Robert. Mesmerism: and the End of the Enlightenment in France. Harvard University Press, 1968.
3-4
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
.
White, Daniel E. “The Joineriana: Anna Barbauld, the Aikin Family Circle, and the Dissenting Public Sphere”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol.
32
, No. 4, 1999, pp. 511-33.
531n25
University of Alberta Libraries On-line Catalogue. http://www.library.ualberta.ca/.
1830-42: Auguste Comte published Cours de philosophie...
Writing climate item
1830-42
Auguste Comte
published Cours de philosophie positive in six volumes.
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
The Athenaeum Index of Reviews and Reviewers: 1830-1870. http://replay.web.archive.org/20070714065452/http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~asp/v2/home.html.
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.
Houghton, Walter E., and Jean Harris Slingerland, editors. The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900. University of Toronto Press, 1966–1989, 5 vols.
4: 193-195, 196-7, 199, 206-7, 214
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press, 2002, 2 vols.
Sadleir, Michael. “Dublin University Magazine: Its History, Contents and Bibliography”. The Bibliographical Society of Ireland, 1938, pp. 59-81.
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.
Haydn, Joseph. Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates and Universal Information. Editor Vincent, Benjamin, 21st ed., Ward, Lock and Bowden, 1895.
1137
Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837. Yale University Press, 1992.
355
Williams, Helen Maria. A Poem on the Bill Lately Passed for Regulating the Slave Trade. T. Cadell, 1788, http://BL.
175
Langer, William L., editor. An Encyclopedia of World History: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chronologically Arranged. 4th ed., Houghton Mifflin, 1968.
657
Halbersleben, Karen I. Women’s Participation in the British Antislavery Movement, 1824-1865. Edwin Mellen Press, 1993.
202-9
Corfield, Kenneth. “Elizabeth Heyrick: Radical Quaker”. Religion in the Lives of English Women, 1760-1930, edited by Gail Malmgreen, Croom Helm, 1986, pp. 41-67.
48
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.
Athenæum. J. Lection.
1306: 1199-1201
Peters, Catherine. Thackeray’s Universe: Shifting Worlds of Imagination and Reality. Oxford University Press, 1987.
202
Drabble, Margaret, editor. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 5th ed., Oxford University Press, 1985.
973
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.
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.
December 1855: Barbara Leigh Smith, later Bodichon, founded...
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press, 1985.
78-9
Shanley, Mary Lyndon. Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England. Princeton University Press, 1989.
32-3
Chedzoy, Alan. A Scandalous Woman: The Story of Caroline Norton. Allison and Busby, 1995.
245-8
14 March 1856: A petition for Reform of the Married Women's...
National or international item
14 March 1856
A petition for 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.
Shanley, Mary Lyndon. Feminism, Marriage, and the Law in Victorian England. Princeton University Press, 1989.
32, 35
Helsinger, Elizabeth K. et al. The Woman Question. Garland, 1983.
2: 14
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London, 1992.
208
Karl, Frederick R. George Eliot: Voice of a Century. W.W. Norton, 1995.
214
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
.
Barwick, George. The Reading Room of the British Museum. Ernest Benn, 1929.
65, 71, 88, 102, 104-5, 136, 139
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
69
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 Martineaus review of VilletteThe Life and Work of Harriet Martineau, Secker and Warburg, 1957, pp. 399-01.
Martineau, Harriet. Berkeley the Banker. Charles Fox, 1833, 2 vols.
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, 3 vols.
Martineau, Harriet. French Wines and Politics. Charles Fox, 1833.
Martineau, Harriet. Guide to Windermere. J. Garnett, 1854.