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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MAR-MEC |
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MARTINEAU, HARRIET (1802-1876) , English writer, was born at Norwich, where her father was a manufacturer, on the 12th of June 1802. The family was of Huguenot extraction (see MARTINEAU, JAMES) and professed Unitarian views. The atmosphere of her home was industrious, intellectual and austere; she herself was clever, but weakly and unhappy; she had no sense of taste or smell, and moreover early grew deaf. At the age of fifteen the state of her health and nerves led to a prolonged visit to her father's sister, Mrs Kentish, who kept a school at Bristol. Here, in the companionship of amiable and talented people, her life became happier. Here, also, she fell under the influence of the Unitarian minister, Dr Lant Carpenter, from whose instructions, she says, she derived " an abominable spiritual rigidity and a truly respectable force of conscience strangely mingled together." From 1819 to 183o she again resided chiefly at Norwich. About her twentieth year her deafness became con-firmed. In 1821 she began to write anonymously for the Monthly Repository, a Unitarian periodical, and in 1823 she published Devotional Exercises and Addresses, Prayers and Hymns. In 1826 her father died, leaving a bare maintenance to his wife and daughters. His death had been preceded by that of his eldest son, and was shortly followed by that of a man to whom Harriet was engaged. Mrs Martineau and her daughters soon after lost all their means by the failure of the house
earnest . Besides reviewing for the Repository she wrote stories (afterwards collected as Traditions of Palestine), gained in one year (183o) three essay-prizes of the Unitarian Association, and eked out her income by needlework. In 1831 she was seeking a publisher for a series of tales designed as Illustrations of Political Economy
series was immediate and enormous, the demand increased with each new number, and from that time her literary success was secured. In 1832 she moved to London, where she numbered among her acquaintance Hallam, Milman, Malthus, Monckton Milnes, Sydney Smith, Bulwer, and later Carlyle. . Till 1834 she continued to be occupied with her political economy
Martyr
In 1839, during a visit to the Continent, Miss Martineau's health broke down. She retired to solitary lodgings in Tyne- mouth, and remained an invalid till 1844. Besides a novel, The Hour and the Man (1840), Life in the Sickroom (1844), and the Playfellow (1841), she published a series of tales for children containing some of her most popular work: Settlers at Home, The Peasant and the Prince, Feats on the Fiord, &c. During this illness she for a second time declined a pension on the civil list
annuity
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
interest
In 1851 Miss Martineau edited a volume of Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development. Its form is that of a correspondence between herself and H. G. Atkinson , and it expounds that doctrine of philosophical atheism to which Miss Martineau in Eastern Life had depicted the course of human belief as tending. 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. Atkinson was a zealous exponent of mesmerism, and the prominence given to the topics of mesmerism and clairvoyance heightened the general disapprobation of the book, which caused a lasting division between Miss Martineau and some of her friends.She published a condensed English version of the Philosophie Positive (18J3). 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 auto-biography, but her life, which she supposed to be so near its close, was prolonged for twenty years. She died at " The Knoll " on the 27th of June 1876. 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 characteristicsindustry 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
See her Autobiography, with Memorials by Maria Weston Chapman (1877) and Mrs. Fenwick Miller, Harriet Martineau (1884, " Eminent Women Series "). End of Article: MARTINEAU, HARRIET (1802-1876) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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