Harriet Martineau Biography

Dromo's Den

MARTINEAU, Harriet (1802–76). An English writer, sister of James Martineau, born at Norwich, England, June 12, 1802; educated mostly at home. She early became a convert to Unitarianism. Miss Martineau began writing when a girl, contributing her first article in 1821 to the Monthly Repository, the Unitarian organ. In 1829 the house in which had been placed the small fortunes of the family failed and Miss Martineau turned to literature for support. Her health had been precarious from girlhood and it now frequently broke down. For rest she visited America (1834–35) and Venice (1839). By 1845 she had passed from Unitarianism to agnosticism. In 1845–46 she settled near Ambleside by the English Lakes, where she lived till her death, June 27, 1876. Miss Martineau published 36 distinct works, comprising tales, novels, and essays on history, politics, economics, and philosophy, and contributed extensively to periodicals. In the Daily News alone appeared more than 1600 articles. She gained her first success with Illustrations of Political Economy (1832–34), a series of tales with a purpose, and Illustrations of Taxation (1834), in which she sought to popularize current, theories through fiction. Among her other works are: Society in America (1837) ; Western Travel (1838) ; Deerbrook, a readable novel (1839); The Playfellow, good children's stories (1841); Life in the Sick Room (1843), autobiographical; Letters on Mesmerism (1845); Eastern Life, Past and Present (1848), in which she avowed her religious opinions; History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace (1849), a weighty piece of writing; Letters on the Laws of Man's Social Nature and Development (1851), written in conjunction with H. G. Atkinson; The Philosophy of Comte (1853), a condensation of the Philosophic positive; Biographical Sketches (1869). Though little of Miss Martineau's work has survived as a permanent literary possession, it was of great value to her generation. She was a popularizer of the advanced thinking of her day. Consult: Autobiography, with Memorials by M. W. Chapman (London, 1877); F. F. Miller, Harriet Martineau (Boston, 1890); J. F. Clarke, "Harriet Martineau," in his Nineteenth Century Questions (Boston, 1898).

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 155.