Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau's Autobiography

Valerie Sanders (University of Hull)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1877

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Autobiography (literary)

Resources

Harriet Martineau's Autobiography is an unusually outspoken example of the genre, particularly for a woman writing in the nineteenth century. It was composed by Martineau in the first three months of 1855 at headlong speed in the belief that she had a fatal heart disease and would hardly live to complete it. In the event, she lived for another twenty-one years, but she added nothing to the manuscript, which had already been printed and stored for posthumous publication. Her American friend and literary executor, Maria Weston Chapman, assembled a third volume consisting of personal memories, journal extracts and additional material covering the last twenty years of Martineau's life. This has remained out of print, widely dismissed …

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985 words

Citation: Sanders, Valerie. "Harriet Martineau's Autobiography". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 January 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13038, accessed 26 November 2024.]

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