Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)
Author of Deerbrook
About the Author
Martineau, from a devout and strict Unitarian family in Norwich, was born without the sense either of taste or of smell and, by the age of 12, showed signs of severe deafness. Throughout the early years of her life, she battled poverty and illness. At her mother's insistence, Martineau was show more educated, at first at home by her brothers and then for a short time at school. Because her loss of hearing became worse, she was sent home. Within a space of about three years during the late 1820's, Martineau's favorite brother, Thomas, died; her father lost his fortune and died; and her fiance became insane and died. By 1829, the last of the family money was gone, and she was reduced to helping support her mother and sisters with her needlework. At about this time, she began to review for the Unitarian periodical The Monthly Repository and in 1831 won all three prizes in the magazine's contest for the best essays on the conversion of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims. During 1832-33,she published the tales "Illustrations of Political Economy" and its sequel, "Poor Laws and Paupers," in monthly parts. Despite their pointed didacticism, the works were a tremendous success. Other works of fiction followed. In 1839, she published her first novel, "Deerbrook," and, three years later, her fictionalized biography of Toussaint L'Ouverture, "The Hour and the Man," appeared. Despite her forays into fiction, however, Martineau is better known today for her historical, political, and philosophical writings. Early in her career, she was influenced by the classical economies of David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. She was friends with Edwin Chadwick and James Kay-Shuttleworth, and acquainted with John Stuart Mill. A strong, often radical proponent of utilitarian reform, early in her career she wrote a number of instructive texts that advocated the same curriculum for men and women. By the mid 1840's, Martineau had completely thrown off her Unitarianism and in 1851, published her antitheological "Laws of Man's Social Nature." Some good work has been done on Martineau's life and writings, especially on the political aspects of her public life. Books on Martineau as a literary artist are scarcer; Deirdre David's "Intellectual Women and Victorian Patriarchy" (1987) contains an excellent discussion of Martineau, and Valerie Sanders's "Reason over Passion" (1986) discusses Martineau as a novelist. One of the most insightful books on Martineau, and one of the most readable, is her own Autobiography (1877). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Harriet Martineau
The history of British rule in India 3 copies
Novelas Económicas de H. Martineau. Volumen I, "La vida en territorio salvaje y La colina y el valle" (2013) 2 copies
Novelas Económicas de H. Martineau. Volumen II, "Ella de Garveloch y Alegrías y penas en Garveloch" (2013) 2 copies
For each and for all : a tale 2 copies
The Philosophy of August Comte 2 copies
The martyr age of the United States 2 copies
The Jerseymen meeting : a tale 2 copies
Homes abroad : a tale 2 copies
EL ASILO DE HANWELL 1 copy
Traditions of Palestine 1 copy
Illustrations of Political Economy: Demerara. Ella of Garveloch. Weal and Woe in Garveloch (2010) 1 copy
The History of England, Vol. 4: From the Commencement of the Xixth Century to the Crimean War (Classic Reprint) (2017) 1 copy
Miscellanies, Vol. 1 1 copy
[Works] 1 copy
Briery Creek : a tale 1 copy
The tenth haycock : a tale 1 copy
The land's end : a tale 1 copy
A tale of the Tyne 1 copy
Novelas económicas 1 copy
Associated Works
British Women Writers: An Anthology from the Fourteenth Century to the Present (1989) — Contributor — 61 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1802-06-12
- Date of death
- 1876-06-27
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- essayist
novelist
translator
sociologist
philosopher
social theorist (show all 7)
autobiographer - Organizations
- American Abolitionist Party
- Relationships
- Martineau, James (brother)
Carpenter, Lant (teacher, minister)
Darwin, Erasmus (lover)
Caldwell, Anne Marsh (friend)
Chapman, Maria Weston (friend)
Kirkland, Caroline M. (friend) - Short biography
- Harriet Martineau was born in Norwich, England, to a family of French Huguenot origins. Her progressive parents saw to it that all their children were well and equally educated. She published some devotional works anonymously as a teenager, but was forced into selling needlepoint and hack writing to help support her family after her father's business failure and death. She went on to produce reviews, short stories, and essays. She developed increasing deafness, which she described as "very noticeable, very inconvenient, and excessively painful." In 1832, she began publishing a series of articles on political economy, which proved to be an immediate and enormous success. She became one of the most widely admired writers of her day. Today she is considered one of the first female sociologists. Harriet Martineau spent the years 1834 to 1836 in the USA, where she joined the abolitionist movement, the first of several radical causes she would champion. Her autobiography was published posthumously in two volumes in 1877.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Norwich, England, UK (Birth)
London, England, UK
Tynemouth, England, UK
Ambleside, Cumbria, England, UK (Death) - Place of death
- Ambleside, Cumbria, England, UK
- Burial location
- Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley, Birmingham, England
- Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Discussions
Group read: Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau in Virago Modern Classics (February 2017)
Reviews
Deerbrook reminded me of a 19th century soap opera. Like Dallas or Dynasty, there are rival families (or, at least, rival women) who use local gossip to promote themselves and denigrate their rivals. The arrival of the Grey's city cousins, Hester and Margaret, provides new fodder for the local gossip mill. It doesn't take long for the two most eligible bachelors, physician Edward Hope and law student Philip Enderby, to seek out the sisters' company. The gossips assume that men will naturally show more prefer the beautiful elder sister, Hester, but both men are attracted more by Margaret's personality. This will lead to worlds of trouble, particularly since Mr. Enderby is the brother of Mrs. Grey's social rival, Mrs. Rowland. Mrs. Rowland has other plans for her brother.
The novel's main purpose is didactic, and the entertainment value is secondary to this purpose. Also, Margaret may come across as a Mary Sue to modern readers. However, many of the issues raised in the novel are still problems today. What are unsubstantiated rumors or false reports if not “fake news”? And don't we still see people shunned and businesses boycotted because they voted for a candidate that others don't like, even when that candidate won the election? This novel will still speak to today's readers who are willing to tolerate the heavy-handed dialogue. show less
The novel's main purpose is didactic, and the entertainment value is secondary to this purpose. Also, Margaret may come across as a Mary Sue to modern readers. However, many of the issues raised in the novel are still problems today. What are unsubstantiated rumors or false reports if not “fake news”? And don't we still see people shunned and businesses boycotted because they voted for a candidate that others don't like, even when that candidate won the election? This novel will still speak to today's readers who are willing to tolerate the heavy-handed dialogue. show less
If you will be advised by me, my dears, you will save Deerbrook for retirement. While it is certainly worth reading (especially for those interested in the development of thought about women's issues or in the development of British literature), it is long - at 500+ pages of small print, and very much of its time (1839). It's not that there is a dearth of events but that the protagonists' virtues and the author's praise of them deprives the melodrama of its spice.
The Miss Ibbotsons come to show more Deerbrook to live with their cousins, the Greys, following their father's death. Hester is beautiful and somewhat given to self-pity and then to self-recrimination equalled in its intensity only by its brevity. Margaret is almost plain beside her sister but is her superior in intellect, understanding, sensitivity, and good humor. The two young women stir up the whole village (which appears to be idyllic), but most especially Mr. Hope, the young doctor and Mr. Enderby, brother-in-law of Mr. Grey's business partner. Both men fall in love with Margaret (the first surprise!), but Edward Hope learns that Hester has fallen in love with him.
The plot turns on the same peculiar early Victorian idea as that which drives Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?. Apparently, a woman must marry her first love or she can no longer be pure and a worthy mate for a self-respecting gentleman. Hope decides that he must marry Hester since she loves him, and thus makes the first great mistake of his life. A bit later the idea comes into play again as another lover breaks his engagement saying that he had told his betrothed of the beginnings of a prior attachment. That was the logical time for her to have told him of her own. He would not then have married her, but he would have always respected as well as loved her.
Meanwhile the Hopes and Margaret suffer betrayal after betrayal and Deerbrook falls prey to a pestilential fever. A villainess, characterized as a fiend, poisons relationships with malice. It is a relief when all comes well in the end. The most interesting character, Maria, does not receive nearly enough attention. She is like Martineau in that she has a disability and has been disappointed in love but makes herself a life as a solitary. Martineau's philosophy is often in Maria's mouth, and her discussions with Margaret are some of the most compelling moments in the book. Martineau lacks Jane Austen's wit and ability to edit, but I always picked up my copy eagerly, and I'm sorry to bid Deerbrook farewell. show less
The Miss Ibbotsons come to show more Deerbrook to live with their cousins, the Greys, following their father's death. Hester is beautiful and somewhat given to self-pity and then to self-recrimination equalled in its intensity only by its brevity. Margaret is almost plain beside her sister but is her superior in intellect, understanding, sensitivity, and good humor. The two young women stir up the whole village (which appears to be idyllic), but most especially Mr. Hope, the young doctor and Mr. Enderby, brother-in-law of Mr. Grey's business partner. Both men fall in love with Margaret (the first surprise!), but Edward Hope learns that Hester has fallen in love with him.
The plot turns on the same peculiar early Victorian idea as that which drives Trollope's Can You Forgive Her?. Apparently, a woman must marry her first love or she can no longer be pure and a worthy mate for a self-respecting gentleman. Hope decides that he must marry Hester since she loves him, and thus makes the first great mistake of his life. A bit later the idea comes into play again as another lover breaks his engagement saying that he had told his betrothed of the beginnings of a prior attachment. That was the logical time for her to have told him of her own. He would not then have married her, but he would have always respected as well as loved her.
Meanwhile the Hopes and Margaret suffer betrayal after betrayal and Deerbrook falls prey to a pestilential fever. A villainess, characterized as a fiend, poisons relationships with malice. It is a relief when all comes well in the end. The most interesting character, Maria, does not receive nearly enough attention. She is like Martineau in that she has a disability and has been disappointed in love but makes herself a life as a solitary. Martineau's philosophy is often in Maria's mouth, and her discussions with Margaret are some of the most compelling moments in the book. Martineau lacks Jane Austen's wit and ability to edit, but I always picked up my copy eagerly, and I'm sorry to bid Deerbrook farewell. show less
How far would your sense of duty take you? Would it cause you to subordinate yourself to the good of others, to what other people expect you to do based on their misperceptions of your deeds and words? Duty and the distinction between duty to oneself and duty to others is one of the major dilemmas at the heart of Deerbrook.
Dearbrook was a rural English village, reasonably prosperous, reasonably pretty, and oh so mundane. The two major merchant families were headed by Mr Rowland and Mr Grey: show more business partners, neighbours and friends. Their wives, however, were a completely different matter. Mrs Rowland and Mrs Grey were rivals in everything, but somehow managed to have their small children educated together by Miss Young, whose salary the families paid.
Into this claustrophobic world came the Misses Ibbotson. Hester and Margaret were recently orphaned and had come to visit their only relative, Mr Grey, "...while their father's affairs were in course of arrangement, and till it could be discovered what their means of living were likely to be." Naturally the two eligible young women became an instant source of speculation and gossip. Mrs Grey was convinced that all eligible young men would be captivated by Hester, as dazzled as she herself was by her beauty. Margaret was lauded for her intelligence and quiet manner. Mrs Grey particularly championed the aptly name Edward Hope, the village doctor, as a match for Hester. Mrs Rowland couldn't tolerate the idea of anybody from Deerbrook marrying into the Greys, in her mind Greys should leave Deerbrook upon marriage.
The interfering machinations, the use of manipulations and innuendo by both Mrs Rowland and Mrs Grey would result in one potentially vey unhappy marriage, one emotionally devastated sister, a promising career put on the skids, a mob attack, and one aborted engagement.
Honesty emerges as the other major dilemma for Martineau's characters. Some have no regard for it, committing outright acts of deception to mold the world to their wishes, no matter the pain it caused or how close to home it fell. Others used truth selectively, pushing matters here, holding back there. Still others struggled to find the truth, within themselves and in others.
Truth and duty, no longer fashionable in some circles, were major moral concerns in much of nineteenth century English literature. Martineau cloaked some of her discussion in religious terms, which might not necessarily resonate with today's readers, but which do give insight into the thought of her contemporaries. She is perhaps a bit too comfortable with the idea of adversity as something which can be overcome and thus make us stronger and so closer to the deity. However, that takes nothing away from her skill at characterization. The sheer egregious audacity of Mrs Rowland creates one of Victorian literature's best evil women. Children are convincingly portrayed, their prattle showing them unconsciously developing into little miniatures of their parents complete with their points of view. Martineau's sly descriptions of social visits show that she was not only an astute observer, but also a victim of the tedium induced by middle class convention.
Deerbrook is a first novel, but Harriet Martineau was already an established writer. She was the author of a series of popular articles, "Illustrations of Political Economy" and three books on American life written after two years of travel in North America where she spoke in support of Abolition. Chronologically, Martineau fills the gap between Jane Austen and George Eliot. Stylistically, she would be looking ahead to Eliot, but there are definitely echoes of Austen here. The Athenaeum reviewer felt her superior to Austen, while Blackwood's compared her to Madame de Stael. Martineau wrote one more novel before abandoning fiction and returning to essays and articles. show less
Dearbrook was a rural English village, reasonably prosperous, reasonably pretty, and oh so mundane. The two major merchant families were headed by Mr Rowland and Mr Grey: show more business partners, neighbours and friends. Their wives, however, were a completely different matter. Mrs Rowland and Mrs Grey were rivals in everything, but somehow managed to have their small children educated together by Miss Young, whose salary the families paid.
Into this claustrophobic world came the Misses Ibbotson. Hester and Margaret were recently orphaned and had come to visit their only relative, Mr Grey, "...while their father's affairs were in course of arrangement, and till it could be discovered what their means of living were likely to be." Naturally the two eligible young women became an instant source of speculation and gossip. Mrs Grey was convinced that all eligible young men would be captivated by Hester, as dazzled as she herself was by her beauty. Margaret was lauded for her intelligence and quiet manner. Mrs Grey particularly championed the aptly name Edward Hope, the village doctor, as a match for Hester. Mrs Rowland couldn't tolerate the idea of anybody from Deerbrook marrying into the Greys, in her mind Greys should leave Deerbrook upon marriage.
The interfering machinations, the use of manipulations and innuendo by both Mrs Rowland and Mrs Grey would result in one potentially vey unhappy marriage, one emotionally devastated sister, a promising career put on the skids, a mob attack, and one aborted engagement.
Honesty emerges as the other major dilemma for Martineau's characters. Some have no regard for it, committing outright acts of deception to mold the world to their wishes, no matter the pain it caused or how close to home it fell. Others used truth selectively, pushing matters here, holding back there. Still others struggled to find the truth, within themselves and in others.
Truth and duty, no longer fashionable in some circles, were major moral concerns in much of nineteenth century English literature. Martineau cloaked some of her discussion in religious terms, which might not necessarily resonate with today's readers, but which do give insight into the thought of her contemporaries. She is perhaps a bit too comfortable with the idea of adversity as something which can be overcome and thus make us stronger and so closer to the deity. However, that takes nothing away from her skill at characterization. The sheer egregious audacity of Mrs Rowland creates one of Victorian literature's best evil women. Children are convincingly portrayed, their prattle showing them unconsciously developing into little miniatures of their parents complete with their points of view. Martineau's sly descriptions of social visits show that she was not only an astute observer, but also a victim of the tedium induced by middle class convention.
Deerbrook is a first novel, but Harriet Martineau was already an established writer. She was the author of a series of popular articles, "Illustrations of Political Economy" and three books on American life written after two years of travel in North America where she spoke in support of Abolition. Chronologically, Martineau fills the gap between Jane Austen and George Eliot. Stylistically, she would be looking ahead to Eliot, but there are definitely echoes of Austen here. The Athenaeum reviewer felt her superior to Austen, while Blackwood's compared her to Madame de Stael. Martineau wrote one more novel before abandoning fiction and returning to essays and articles. show less
Like Charles Kingsley's Two Years Ago and Eliot's Middlemarch, this is a tale of an English country doctor carrying out sanitary reform written by a Victorian author responding to Positivism. There's a chapter of my dissertation about Two Years Ago and Middlemarch, so maybe, I thought, I ought to read this book too.
Well, I shouldn't have. Martineau comes across as a sub-Eliot, or perhaps less anachronistically, a sub-Austen. I'm not even a book Austen fan and I can tell that this book lacks show more her wit and insight. Take a look at this sentence: "It is a fact which few but the despisers of their race like to acknowledge, and which those despisers of their race are therefore apt to interpret wrongly, and are enabled to make too much of—that it is perfectly natural,—so natural as to appear necessary,—that when young people first meet, the possibility of their falling in love should occur to all the minds present." C'mon, narrator, whatever insight that obviously-imitative sentence might have had has been buried in a blizzard of completely unnecessary clauses.
Martineau is one of those writers who can stretch a small village tiff out into hundreds of pages for the maximum effect of boringness; I could not have cared less about who did what after slogging through the first 200 pages of it, but it kept on going on and on and not even a plague piqued my interest. show less
Well, I shouldn't have. Martineau comes across as a sub-Eliot, or perhaps less anachronistically, a sub-Austen. I'm not even a book Austen fan and I can tell that this book lacks show more her wit and insight. Take a look at this sentence: "It is a fact which few but the despisers of their race like to acknowledge, and which those despisers of their race are therefore apt to interpret wrongly, and are enabled to make too much of—that it is perfectly natural,—so natural as to appear necessary,—that when young people first meet, the possibility of their falling in love should occur to all the minds present." C'mon, narrator, whatever insight that obviously-imitative sentence might have had has been buried in a blizzard of completely unnecessary clauses.
Martineau is one of those writers who can stretch a small village tiff out into hundreds of pages for the maximum effect of boringness; I could not have cared less about who did what after slogging through the first 200 pages of it, but it kept on going on and on and not even a plague piqued my interest. show less
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