Background
Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich, where her father was a manufacturer, on the 12th of June 1802.
(Complemented by a chronology of the author's works, a con...)
Complemented by a chronology of the author's works, a concise biographical portrait, detailed text notes, and suggestions for further reading, a new edition of the author's mid-nineteenth-century novel about domestic relationships, village life, and the nature of prejudice and ignorance follows the lives of the two Ibbotson sisters, after they come to the village of Deerbrook to stay with their cousin and his wife. Original.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0141439394/?tag=2022091-20
( Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy ...)
Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy established Harriet Martineau as both a successful and controversial author and a pioneer of nineteenth-century social problem writing. This widely read series of didactic stories popularized political economy, making it accessible to audiences by vividly dramatizing issues such as overpopulation and labour strikes. Illustrations of Political Economy marks a pivotal moment in which literature and politics came together, laying the foundation for the realism and social commentary of later Victorian novels. This Broadview edition contains a critical introduction and a rich selection of historical documents, including contemporary reviews of Illustrations and writings on population growth, factory conditions, and working-class life.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1551114410/?tag=2022091-20
(Harriet Martineau brought to her observations the convict...)
Harriet Martineau brought to her observations the convictions of a vehement English liberal and an astonishingly modern sociological approach. In 1834 she wrote the first draft of How to Observe Manners and Morals--perhaps the earliest book on the methodology of social research. In abridging the 800-page original for the modern reader, Lipset has concentrated on Martineau's brilliant discussion of religious practices, social status, and childrearing; political apathy and the position of women, blacks, and immigrants; and the American's casual approach to indebtedness and his speculative wealth-or-ruin schemes.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0878558535/?tag=2022091-20
(This abridged version of Harriet Martineau's narrative of...)
This abridged version of Harriet Martineau's narrative of her travels in Jacksonian America preserves her reporting on slavery and other current topics of the day, as well as her insights on women's place in society, and her observations and vignettes of famous people such as John Calhoun.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765602148/?tag=2022091-20
Harriet Martineau was born at Norwich, where her father was a manufacturer, on the 12th of June 1802.
Armed with an excellent childhood education, Harriet Martineau had to overcome deafness, the loss of her senses of smell and taste, extensive nervous disorder, and finally, heart disease.
Investing her time heavily in journalism, Harriet Martineau nevertheless brought out a new volume almost every year, speaking for a variety of forms of "philosophical radicalism.
Harriet had to earn her living, and, being precluded by deafness from teaching, took up authorship in earnest.
Four stories dealing with the poor-law came out about the same time.
These tales, direct, lucid, written without any appearance of effort, and yet practically effective, display the characteristics of their author's style.
In 1834, when the series was complete, Miss Martineau paid a long visit to America.
An article in the Westminster Review, " The Martyr Age of the United States, " introduced English readers to the struggles of the Abolitionists.
To the same period belong a few little handbooks, forming parts of a Guide to Service.
She retired to solitary lodgings in Tynemouth, and remained an invalid till 1844.
Her letter on the subject was published, and some of her friends raised a small annuity for her soon after. In 1844 Miss Martineau underwent a course of mesmerism, and in a few months was restored to health.
She eventually published an account of her case, which had caused much discussion, in sixteen Letters on Mesmerism.
On her recovery she removed to Ambleside, where she built herself " The Knoll, " the house in which the greater part of her after life was spent.
In 1845 she published three volumes of Forest and Game Law Tales.
In 1846 she made a tour with some friends in Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and on her return published Eastern Life, Present and Past (1848).
The ultimate goal Miss Martineau believed to be philosophic atheism, but this belief she did not expressly declare.
Her interest in schemes of instruction led her to start a series of lectures, addressed at first to the school children of Ambleside, but afterwards extended, at their own desire, to their elders.
The subjects were sanitary principles and practice, the histories of England and North America, and the scenes of her Eastern travels.
The existence of a first cause is not denied, but is declared unknowable, and the authors, while regarded by others as denying it, certainly considered themselves to be affirming the doctrine of man's moral obligation.
To the Daily News she contributed regularly from 1852 to 1866.
Her Letters from Ireland, written during a visit to that country in the summer of 1852, appeared in that paper.
She was for many years a contributor to the Westminster Review, and was one of the little band of supporters whose pecuniary assistance in 1854 prevented its extinction or forced sale.
In the early part of 1855 Miss Martineau found herself suffering from heart disease.
She now began to write her autobiography, but her life, which she supposed to be so near its close, was prolonged for twenty years.
She cultivated a tiny farm at Ambleside with success, and her poorer neighbours owed much to her.
Her busy life bears the consistent impress of two leading characteristics-industry and sincerity.
The verdict which she records on herself in the autobiographical sketch left to be published by the Daily News has been endorsed by posterity.
She says-" Her original power was nothing more than was due to earnestness and intellectual clearness within a certain range.
With small imaginative and suggestive powers, and therefore nothing approaching to genius, she could see clearly what she did see, and give a clear expression to what she had to say.
In short, she could popularize while she could neither discover nor invent. "
Her judgment on large questions was clear and sound, and was always the judgment of a mind naturally progressive and Protestant.
"Though she began as a deeply religious person, she finally became a spokesman for the antitheological views of the philosopher Auguste Comte, popularizing him in a two-volume work (1853).
After her heart disease was diagnosed as fatal, Martineau began her autobiography in 1855 (it was published posthumously in 1877).
(Complemented by a chronology of the author's works, a con...)
(This abridged version of Harriet Martineau's narrative of...)
( Published in 1832, Illustrations of Political Economy ...)
(Harriet Martineau brought to her observations the convict...)
(Feats on the Fiord - The third book in)