MARTINEAU, HARRIET

born June 12, 1802, Norwich, Norfolk, Eng. died June 27, 1876, near Ambleside, Westmorland essayist, novelist, and economic and historical writer who, despite deafness, heart disease, and other disabilities, was prominent among English intellectuals of her time. Perhaps her most scholarly work is The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte, Freely Translated and Condensed, 2 vol. (1853), her version of Comte's Cours de philosophie positive, 6 vol. (183042). Martineau first gained a large reading public with an extensive series of anecdotes and dialogues popularizing classical economics, especially the ideas of Thomas Robert Malthus and David Ricardo: Illustrations of Political Economy, 25 vol. (183234), Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated, 10 vol. (183334), and Illustrations of Taxation, 5 vol. (1834). After a visit to the United States (183436), concerning which she wrote Society in America (1837) and Retrospect of Western Travel (1838), she espoused the then unpopular Abolition Movement and repudiated laissez-faire economics in favour of a more utopian system. Her best-known novels, including Deerbrook (1939) and The Hour and the Man (1841), were also written during this period. A trip to the Middle East (1846) led her to study the evolution of religions and to become increasingly skeptical of religious beliefs, including her own liberal Unitarianism. Her chief historical work, The History of the Thirty Years' Peace, A.D. 18161846 (1849), was a widely read popular treatment. She also contributed to several periodicals, and her Biographical Sketches (1869, enlarged 1877) was a collection of articles written for the Daily News on various well-known contemporaries, including Charlotte Bront. Her candid Autobiography, edited by Maria Weston Chapman, was published posthumously (3 vol., 1877). Additional reading Studies of her life and works include Vera Wheatley, The Life and Work of Harriet Martineau (1957); R.K. Webb, Harriet Martineau: A Radical Victorian (1960); Valerie Sanders, Reason Over Passion: Harriet Martineau and the Victorian Novel (1986); Valerie Kossew Pichanick, Harriet Martineau (1980); Gillian Thomas, Harriet Martineau (1985); and Susan Hoecker-Drysdale, Harriet Martineau, First Woman Sociologist (1992).