Autobiography

Front Cover
Broadview Press, 2006 M12 21 - 741 pages

Harriet Martineau lived an extraordinary literary life. She became a reviewer and journalist in the 1820s when her family’s fortune collapsed; published a best-selling series, Illustrations of Political Economy (1832-34), that made her fame and fortune by the age of thirty; overcame a hearing disability to become a “literary lion” in London society; toured the United States and wrote two founding texts of sociology based on her experiences; explored north Africa and the Middle East to observe non-European societies; wrote “leaders” (editorials) on slavery for the London Daily News during the American Civil War; and commented publicly on matters of politics, history, and religion in an era when women supposedly maintained their place in the sphere of domesticity.

This edition of her Autobiography reproduces the original 1877 text, which Martineau composed in 1855 and had printed in anticipation of her death. It includes illustrations of the author and her homes; excerpts from the “Memorials,” added by her editor Maria Chapman; and reviews that praise and critique Martineau’s method as an autobiographer and achievement as a Victorian woman of letters.

 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
34
SECTION IISchool life Home life Reading Deafness Politics
87
SECTION ILondon lodgings Life there Amount of work Times
152
SECTION IIIFaults and misery Going to Bristol
183
SECTION IILiterary Lionism Norwich at the beginning of the century
211
39
255
57
263
PERIOD IV
327
The Billow and the Rock Going to the East
514
SECTION IVChartism in 1848 Whig notions of popular manage
538
Words For Sartains Magazine Sketches from Life Mr Jerrold
553
SECTION VIAnticipations of the results of the Atkinson Letters
567
TO THIRTY YEARS
594
SECTION VIIScheme of translating Comtes Positive Philosophy
604
SECTION VIIIIntroduction to Daily News Irish journey Servants
610
SECTION IXFatal illness Home and preparation Mistake of life
627

SECTION IVBooksellers proffers and methods Society
393
SECTION IMorbid conditions as a matter of study Causes of illness
432
SECTION IIAntitheological progression
457
88
458
SECTION IIIRecovery Letters on Mesmerism Persecution
462
PERIOD VI
472
Robert Peel Garden and sundial Tourists Leaving home
488
Illustrations from the Autobiography 1877
648
PORTRAIT OF HARRIET MARTINEAU 1833
649
Selections from the Memorials 1877
654
Obituary London Daily News 29 June 1876
660
Contemporary Reviews
672
Works Cited and Recommended Reading
738
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

Linda H. Peterson is Niel Gray, Jr. Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of English, Yale University.

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