8 h 3 minAudiobook8 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does it take for a woman to earn her living with her pen when few women can?
Harriet Martineau grows up in a Norwich household that values books, argument, and religious independence. Deafness and family money troubles shape her path. In this biography, Florence Fenwick Miller follows a determined woman who turns writing into a livelihood and makes economic ideas vivid through stories of workers, masters, and settlers.
Success brings a wider world into view. Martineau travels across America, where slavery tests her principles, and continues writing through years of illness. Miller, a journalist and campaigner for women's causes, presents her with open admiration: a worker and thinker whose example, she argues, matters for the women who follow.
What you’ll discover
- A mind shaped by argument Enter a Norwich family where books and religious independence help shape Martineau's thinking.
- Stories that explain economics Discover how Illustrations of Political Economy brings economic principles into the lives of invented characters.
- Principles tested in America Follow Martineau through schools, prisons, and farms as she encounters American life and slavery.
- Work within a narrow room See how writing remains part of her life through years of illness at Tynemouth.
- A pen in public life Explore her journalism on slavery, India, and law, and Miller's case for her lasting example.
Who will love it
For readers who love Victorian lives, the history of women's rights, and stories of how ideas reach the public through journalism.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Norwich childhood shapes a mind
- Loss forces her to earn a living
- Tales of political economy make her name
- America tests her principles on slavery
- Illness, a cure, and the Ambleside years
- A working life that opened doors
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Harriet Martineau
by Florence Fenwick Miller · 1885
A woman earns her living with her pen and speaks out against slavery and for women's right to work.
Challenging5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
This is a life of Harriet Martineau, the Victorian writer who earned her living with her pen at a time when few women could. It was written by Florence Fenwick Miller, a journalist and lecturer who admired her, for a series of short books on eminent women in the 1880s.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Norwich childhood shapes a mind
Harriet Martineau was born in Norwich in 1802 into a Unitarian family with French Huguenot roots. Her father, Thomas, made cloth, and the household valued books, argument, and religious independence. Unitarians of the time were Dissenters, shut out of the old universities and many public offices. That outsider position taught the family to think for itself.
Miller gives a plain picture of a difficult child. Harriet was nervous, often unwell, and by her own later account short of affection from a stern mother. She lost her sense of taste and smell very young, and her hearing began to fail in her teens. Deafness would stay with her for life and made her an observer at the edge of conversation.
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Who was Harriet Martineau?
Harriet Martineau was a nineteenth century English writer and social thinker. She wrote on economics, slavery, travel, and women's rights, and she earned her living by writing. Deaf from youth, she became one of the best known authors of her time.
What is Harriet Martineau by Florence Fenwick Miller about?
It is a biography that follows Martineau from her Norwich childhood through money trouble, literary success, her American journey, illness, and her later years as a journalist and campaigner, with a strongly admiring view of her character and work.
Why is Harriet Martineau called an early feminist?
She argued for better education for girls, women's right to paid work, and fairer laws for married women. She also criticised the legal and social dependence of women in both Britain and America, long before the vote was won.
The author
Florence Fenwick Miller
1854–1935 · English journalist and social reformer
Florence Fenwick Miller was an English journalist, author, and social reformer who lived from 1854 to 1935. She was born in London. She served on the London School Board from 1876 to 1885. Her biography Harriet Martineau appeared in 1884. She edited the newspaper Woman’s Signal from 1895 to 1899.
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