Autobiography
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Autobiography
（Nineteenth-century British autobiographies / series editors, Janice Carlisle and Linda Peterson ; textual editor, Elizabeth Reed）
Broadview Press, c2007
Available at 5 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references: p. 738-741
Description and Table of Contents
Description
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.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Harriet Martineau: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Autobiography
Appendix A: Illustrations from the Autobiography (1877)
Appendix B: Selections from the Memorials (1877)
Private Memorandum (June 1829)
Letter from Harriet Martineau to her Mother(22 January 1830)
Letter to the Editor of "Men of the Time"(22 March 1856)
Obituary, London Daily News (29 June 1876)
Appendix C: Contemporary Reviews
Margaret Oliphant, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine (April 1877)
John Morley, Macmillan's Magazine (May 1877)
W.R. Greg, The Nineteenth Century (August 1877)
Works Cited and Recommended Reading
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