Harriet Martineau

Harriet Martineau responds to the strong revival of interest in her life and writing, exploring Martineaus controversial views through her innovative use of popular cultural formsjournalism, travel writing, didactic fiction, novels, translation, autobiography and history. This is the first collection of essays to revisit and reassess Martineaus leading place in Victorian culture and in the development of nineteenth-century liberalism. Distinguished contributorsincluding Isobel Armstrong, Lauren Goodlad, Catherine Hall, Deborah Logan and Linda Petersonoffer critical analyses of her trailblazing career as a professional woman of letters. The essays collected here move from personal to global concerns in Martineaus oeuvre. The opening essays centre on her bold self-fashioning as a writer, while the second section focuses on the domestic complexities of laissez-faire liberalism in her economic and social vision. Finally, the volume analyses her provocative writings on race, Empire and history from Atlantic slavery to the Indian Mutiny demonstrating the international breadth and impact of a remarkable career. -- .