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the experience of reading in Britain, from 1450 to 1945...

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Listings for Reader:  

Harriet Martineau

 

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R.M. Milnes : 

One of my many visitors this summer, - R.M. Milnes, made earnest enquiry for you. I do hope you like his poetry almost as much as he likes yours. I keep a vol. of his always beside me, - & find some things there almost too beautiful. How wonderful, - almost miraculous is his sympathy, - his understanding of Evil in all its forms, - in combination with his robust cheerfulness of spirits & manners! I know it is the fashion among London people who despise speculative men to dislike Milnes. I cordially honour & like him.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Edward Bulwer Lytton : Zanoni

Have you read 'Zanoni'? And do you relish the gathering up of dropped (or strewed) Platonisms, & forming them into such a crown of glory, - of holy radiance, as the moral of that book? Nothing wd. beforehand have persuaded me that such an allegory as that wd. be given us in our day, - though I had caught glimpses in Bulwer's mind of higher powers & better thoughts than he had been used to give out. But this book is such a spring above all his former efforts - such a soaring - as has surprised me: - & others, to judge by the pertinacity of some people in declaring that he cd. not have meant the allegory we hold between our hands; - a thing they might as well say of the maker of a clock, or a county map.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Edward Bulwer Lytton : Zanoni

'This book has helped me incalculably in surmounting coterie-notions of the nature of another life, as well as of the objects of this.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Edward Bulwer Lytton : Zanoni

'I do not defend the bad construction of his story. I lament it, & can only wonder what bewitches us all, - us story-makers, - that we cannot make a story, - Boz, Bulwer, myself & others - while some excel in that particular art whom we do not at all envy in other respects.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Thomas Babington Macaulay : Lays of Ancient Rome

'I quite agree with you about Leonidas &c. I have greatly enjoyed finding myself a child again over Macaulay's 'Lays'. Castor & Pollux really took away my breath. How beautiful those Lays are!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Anna Laetitia Barbauld : Hymns in Prose for Children

'I suppose you shared the benefit, so common, thank God! in our generation, - of an early, & thorough familiarity with Mrs Barbauld's Prose Hymns. I know no book influence (out of the bible) at all to be compared to the hallowing & ripening influence of that little book.[...] I know of no woman's intellect like Mrs. Barbauld's.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Elizabeth Gaskell : Life of Charlotte Bronte

H. J. Jackson notes pencilled marginalia by Harriet Martineau in her copy of Elizabeth Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857), which include "corrections and contradictions" to Gaskell's text.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

John Gay : Gay's Fables

'I always hated Gay's Fables, and for long could not abide a red book.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : New Testament

'So, to work I went in my own way, again and again studying the New Testament,-making "Harmonies", poring over the geography,greedily gathering up every thing I could find in the way of commentary and elucidation, gladly working myself into an enthusiasm with the moral beauty and spiritual promises I found in the Sacred Writings.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Old and New Testament

'With the Old Testament, I got on very well; but I was amazed at the difficulty with the New. I knew it to be of so much more value and importance than the Old, that I could not account for the small number of cut and dry commands.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

John Milton : Paradise Lost

''When I was seven years old [...] I was kept from chapel one Sunday afternoon by some ailment or other. When the door closed behind the other chapel-goers, I looked at the books on the table. The ugliest-looking of them was turned down open; and my turning it up was one of the leading incidents of my life. That plain, clumsy, calf-bound volume was "Paradise Lost";...there was something about Satan cleaving Chaos, which made me turn to the poetry; and my mental destiny was fixed for the next seven years.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

David Friedrich Strauss : Das Leben Jesu

'I am going to begin Strauss, and see what I can make of him. - Have you seen the Opium-Eater's papers on the Lakers in Tait? They are very interesting , but, it seems to me, the most tremendous breach of confidence ever committed; - particularly the giving an account of the "most sublime passage" of Wordsworth's great posthumous work. I wonder what you think of Chorley's "Lion". I don't think it can live, but that there is good enough in it to make one hope he may do something that will'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Thomas De Quincey : 'Lake Reminiscences, from 1807-1830. By the English Opium-Eater', in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine

'I am going to begin Strauss, and see what I can make of him. - Have you seen the Opium-Eater's papers on the Lakers in Tait? They are very interesting , but, it seems to me, the most tremendous breach of confidence ever committed; - particularly the giving an account of the "most sublime passage" of Wordsworth's great posthumous work. I wonder what you think of Chorley's "Lion". I don't think it can live, but that there is good enough in it to make one hope he may do something that will'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Henry Fothergill Chorley : Lion: A Tale of the Coteries, The

'I am going to begin Strauss, and see what I can make of him. - Have you seen the Opium-Eater's papers on the Lakers in Tait? They are very interesting , but, it seems to me, the most tremendous breach of confidence ever committed; - particularly the giving an account of the "most sublime passage" of Wordsworth's great posthumous work. I wonder what you think of Chorley's "Lion". I don't think it can live, but that there is good enough in it to make one hope he may do something that will'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Michel de Montaigne : 

'I do sometimes wish for my library here, where it costs trouble to other people to get books for me, and yet I have done well enough lately with Montaigne, and a bit of Moliere with the boys, now and then, and I Promessi Sposi with Fanny discovering thereby that I can read Italian almost like French or English, which I was not aware of'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Moliere (pseud.) : unknown

'I do sometimes wish for my library here, where it costs trouble to other people to get books for me, and yet I have done well enough lately with Montaigne, and a bit of Moliere with the boys, now and then, and I Promessi Sposi with Fanny discovering thereby that I can read Italian almost like French or English, which I was not aware of'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Alessandro Manzoni : I Promessi Sposi

'I do sometimes wish for my library here, where it costs trouble to other people to get books for me, and yet I have done well enough lately with Montaigne, and a bit of Moliere with the boys, now and then, and I Promessi Sposi with Fanny discovering thereby that I can read Italian almost like French or English, which I was not aware of'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Alfred de Vigny : Cinq Mars

'Is not "Cinq Mars" very fine? I should like to read more of De Vigny'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Thomas Carlyle : Chartism

'"Chartism" gave me more pleasure and less pain than I expected: but the more I think it over the worse it looks. There is a fine sympathy with the many at the bottom; but it is stuck all thro' with prejudices and bits of injustice, as thick as a tipsy cake with almonds; and the excessive conceit, connected with want of knowledge, will do him harm. I think it will do no other harm, and a great deal of good...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : Athenaeum [review of Carlyle's Chartism]

'I liked the Athenaeum on Chartism much. Thank you for sending it. One has great pleasure in reading the Athenaeum - the spirit is so good'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

George Grey : Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in Northwest and Western Australia, 1837-1839

' I find I like reading stories far better than writing them. I have been reading a very sad one recently, - Capn' Grey's discoveries in Australlia. There is an anecdote there which shows how little some people are in the habit of regarding savages as men...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Ralph Waldo Emerson : Essays

'Have you read Emerson's Essays? I suppose it is the first immortal Amern book. It has come to me like a visitation of health'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

various authors : Edinburgh Review

'The Lambtons sent me the last Edinburgh, prematurely brought out for the Eastern article. That art: was bad enough; but North did me good, like a canter over a Scotch moor: and Mrs Austin's "Social Lfe in Germany" has some interest: and that on Manufacturing Folk is delightful'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Thomas Carlyle : Past and Present

'"Past and Present", very bad, insolent, bitter, one-sided and full of weary repetitions. I found it weary and irritating reading, except abbot Samson and some few passages.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Samuel Richardson : Clarissa

'My lamp is burning out, and it is time I was going to my chamber fireside, - there to finished the last 1/2 vol of "Clarissa Harlowe" which I have borrowed from Lambton. What a very bad book it is! - and I expected quite the contrary, tho' hating Grandison. Clarissa herself is odious, - with her rash actions suiting so ill with her passionless, reasoning, self-possessed character...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

various : Edinburgh Review

'I have been reading the new Edinburgh and much like the first article. I wonder who wrote it. The one on Ireland I like, except the sad party stuff in the last 3pp.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Horace Walpole (ed. Richard Bentley) : Letters of Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, to Sir Horace Mann

'I have held off reading Walpole's Correspondences till now. I am in the former series to Mann. At first, I was agreeably disappointed: but now my pain and disgust are growing fast. What a horrid spirit it is!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

James Esdaile : Mesmerism in India and its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine [probably]

'you must see Esdaile's book. If there are any sane persons who still doubt "the truth of Mesmerism", that book must cure them, or show them incurable. But you ought to know that it is terribly surgical'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charlotte Bronte : Jane Eyre

'Can you tell me about "Jane Eyre", - who wrote it? I am told I wrote the 1st vol: and I don't know how to disbelieve it myself, - though I am wholly ignorant of the authorship. I cannot help feeling that the author must know not only my books but myself very well. My own family suppose me in the secret, till I deny it. With much improbability of incident, it is surely a very able book (outside of what I could have done of it) and the way in which the heroine comes out without conceit or egotism is, to me, perfectly wonderful'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

William Makepeace Thackeray : Heny Esmond

'O! "Esmond"! That book marks its own year in one's life. I never did any justice to Thackeray before; and I cannot now read "Vanity Fair". But the publisher sent me "Esmond"; and I expect to read it as long as I live. "Villette". I suppose you feel with the rest of us ; - that it is marvellously powerful, but grievously morbid and not a little coarse.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charlotte Bronte : Villette

'O! "Esmond"! That book marks its own year in one's life. I never did any justice to Thackeray before; and I cannot now read "Vanity Fair". But the publisher sent me "Esmond"; and I expect to read it as long as I live. "Villette". I suppose you feel with the rest of us ; - that it is marvellously powerful, but grievously morbid and not a little coarse.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Elizabeth Gaskell : Ruth

'I hope some woman will arise who, with power like, or equal to, C.B.'s [Charlotte Bronte's], will bring us up to high art again, and not help to sink us in the subjective slough as she is doing. - "Ruth" won't help us. All strewn with beauties as it is, it is sadly feeble and wrong, I think. Amidst much wrong, I think making Mr Benson such a nicompoop is fatal. What a beautiful "Cranford" Mrs Gaskell has given us again!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Elizabeth Gaskell : [possibly the story, 'Stopped Payment, at Cranford' in Household Words, April 1853]

'I hope some woman will arise who, with power like, or equal to, C.B.'s [Charlotte Bronte's], will bring us up to high art again, and not help to sink us in the subjective slough as she is doing. - "Ruth" won't help us. All strewn with beauties as it is, it is sadly feeble and wrong, I think. Amidst much wrong, I think making Mr Benson such a nicompoop is fatal. What a beautiful "Cranford" Mrs Gaskell has given us again!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

John William Kaye : Life and Correspondence of... Sir John Malcolm, The

'I wanted to write about Malcolm's Life and Sothey's new letters, and other things; but I must stop now'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Robert Southey : Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey

'I wanted to write about Malcolm's Life and Sothey's new letters, and other things; but I must stop now'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Sam Brown : Lectures on the Atomic Theory, and Essays, Scientific and Literary

'[Henry Buckle's "History of the Civilisation in England"] will be my fireside book at night (the only time I can read well) as soon as I have finished dear Sam Brown's volumes - which are very interesting, but less strong and clear than I had fancied'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Henry Buckle : History of the Civilisation in England

'Tell Eras: that Buckle has been an immense treat...Of course I agree about the grave inconsistencies, serious disproportions &c; and I doubt whether he understands Condillac and that sort of men: but it is truly a great work, suggestive and productive.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Thomas Carlyle : History of Friedrich II of Prussia, called Frederick the Great [extracts of]

'I suppose one ought to read [Carlyle's] "Fred": but the extracts do look such a hash of his old sayings that one has no great appetite'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Charles Darwin : On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection

'what I write for is to thank you again for sending me your brother's [Charles Darwin's] book. As for thanking him for the book itself, one might say "thank you" all one's life without giving any idea of one's sense of obligation. It has been an immense pleasure to Maria and me...'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Sara Sophia Hennell : Thoughts in Aid of Faith

'[Miss Hennell's] is a wonderful book for beauty; - a really wonderful poem, it seems to me: but O dear! so unsound in the latter part! - so weak in its lapse into metaphysics, after an apparent abjuring of them.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Oliver Wendell Holmes : Elsie Venner

'No doubt it is to you that I owe this pleasure, - of Buckle's 2d vol. Maria has been cutting and skimming, and she opines that I shall find it a very great treat indeed. My best thanks to you for it, dear friend. I am in the thick of a very different sort of book now, - "Elsie Venner", which I did not mean to read; but a look at the first page carried me on: How immensely clever some of these Americans are! and their style of tale so new! I dislike all the part connected with Elsie: but I enjoy the New England atmosphere of the thing, and the wonderful power of deep and incessant observation'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

John Lothrop Motley : Causes of the Civil War in America [probably]

'We are reading Motley's last, - much surprised not to like it better. It is so diffuse and sinks so very low in its Carlylisms &c.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Augusta Llanover (ed.) : Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granvile (Mrs Delany)

'I'm afraid you would give me up if you knew how I am longing for the second series of "Mrs Delany". The first was an enormous treat, - perhaps the greatest in the book way for these seven years: and I reckon on the rest accordingly. I don't mean Ly Llanover's preachings and prosings, which are as bad as can be: but one can miss them'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Samuel Lucas : Secularia; or, Surveys on the Mainstream of History

'Have you read [Mr Lucas's book]? "Secularia; Surveys on the Main Stream of History"... It altogether changes my impressions about the man I correspond with almost every week, and with whom I had lot of conversation here 2 years ago. I have always found him gentlemanly and agreeable, cultivated and liberal &c. &c: but this volume shows him to be (it seems to me) so much more that I am perplexed at not having found it out sooner. It is so fresh, so suggestive, so exceedingly pleasant! and I wanted, as soon as I had done, to begin it again, and read every word twice'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charles Knight : Passages of a Working Life

'I have just been remonstrating with Mr Knight about a couple of sentences in his charming new volume "Some Passages in a Working Life &c.". He quotes an early and witless sneer of Macaulay's against the Americans, and himself applies and points it in a most offensive way. As he asked for my opinion of the book, I tacked this one bit of remonstrance on the thanks I could honestly give. I must mention (as I did to him) that there is a story about me in it which has not a word of truth in it'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Theresa Lewis : Extracts of the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry from the Year 1783 to 1852

'So it was you that sent me "Miss Berry"! That was a real good deed. I don't find that anybody enjoys it half so much as I do; but nobody I see had any clear idea of that trio, or cares about their times as I do. I have not finished it even yet, I am glad to say. I read it as you do; and moreover, a big book has come in which must be read at once, - Mr Grote's "Plato". That too is an immense enjoyment in its way. At first, it was pure delight; but as I go on I am rather dismayed at the amount of repetition in it...'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

George Grote : Plato, and the other Companions of Socrates

'So it was you that sent me "Miss Berry"! That was a real good deed. I don't find that anybody enjoys it half so much as I do; but nobody I see had any clear idea of that trio, or cares about their times as I do. I have not finished it even yet, I am glad to say. I read it as you do; and moreover, a big book has come in which must be read at once, - Mr Grote's "Plato". That too is an immense enjoyment in its way. At first, it was pure delight; but as I go on I am rather dismayed at the amount of repetition in it...'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Mary Grote : A Lady's Walks in the South of France in 1863

'I wonder whether you have read that first book of Miss Eyre's ("Mary Eyre" of the Times) "A Lady's Walks in the South of France". What a disgusting book it is, - a begging book, avowedly written to get money, and disclosing the family poverty, and bemoaning herself all the way through, and preaching and censuring, right and left, and with such adulation of Brougham, as the patron!'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Matthew Arnold : 'My Countrymen' (article in The Cornhill)

'Fan lent me the "Cornhill", with Matt's bit of sauciness... I tell Fan (we are always as plainspoken as can be) that I hope it may do more good than harm; but that it will do harm, - to himself at all events'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

[unknown] : [Liverpool newspaper: squib on Matthew Arnold]

'Of course you have seen the squib on him in the "Examiner" ("Mr Sampson"). I saw it in a Liverpool paper. One sees him in almost every newspaper now. "D. News" rapped his knuckles a month since... and I see the "Times" did it yesterday'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

[unknown] : Daily News (comment on Matthew Arnold)

'Of course you have seen the squib on him in the "Examiner" ("Mr Sampson"). I saw it in a Liverpool paper. One sees him in almost every newspaper now. "D. News" rapped his knuckles a month since... and I see the "Times" did it yesterday'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

[unknown] : The Times (comment on Matthew Arnold)

'Of course you have seen the squib on him in the "Examiner" ("Mr Sampson"). I saw it in a Liverpool paper. One sees him in almost every newspaper now. "D. News" rapped his knuckles a month since... and I see the "Times" did it yesterday'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Charles Babbage : Passages from the Life of a Philosopher

'I have been unexpectedly interested - unexpectedly as to degree - in my old friend Babbage's "Passages in the Life &c". I dare say you read it, and half forgot it, months or years ago. I did not like the look of it in the notices I saw: but I let it come in the Mudie box; and I have been almost terribly interested in it... His face and voice come back with a painful vividness while I read... Some tremendous glimpses in this book are like inspiration...'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

James Anthony Froude : History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada [presumably part of]

'As to books, we (in this house) are very old-fashioned; and I am only now indulging in Froude's "Elizabeth". I did not mean to read it, - being disgusted by his dishonest treatment of evidence in his "Henry": but the review notices tempted me at last; and I find "Elizabeth" extremely entertaining, - however provoking'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

[n/a] : Pall Mall Gazette, The

'So it is you who send me the "Pall Mall"! I shall read it with yet more pleasure now I know... It is a very instructive and interesting paper - so unlike any other!'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Barry Cornwall : Charles Lamb: A Memoir

'I am reading Mr Procter's "Ch.Lamb", - so full of affecting signs of his own failure, and so interesting in all ways. I could not help enjoying Ld Cornwallis, though half-ashamed to own it. Mrs Grote sends me her vol: of "Collected Papers", and some unpublished records of our time, - very interesting. They and I seemed to have rushed into a more vigorous intercourse than ever, as by a sort of accident'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charles Ross : The Correspondence of Charles, 1st Marquis of Cornwallis

'I am reading Mr Procter's "Ch.Lamb", - so full of affecting signs of his own failure, and so interesting in all ways. I could not help enjoying Ld Cornwallis, though half-ashamed to own it. Mrs Grote sends me her vol: of "Collected Papers", and some unpublished records of our time, - very interesting. They and I seemed to have rushed into a more vigorous intercourse than ever, as by a sort of accident'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Harriet Grote : Collected Papers in Prose and Verse. 1842-1862

'I am reading Mr Procter's "Ch.Lamb", - so full of affecting signs of his own failure, and so interesting in all ways. I could not help enjoying Ld Cornwallis, though half-ashamed to own it. Mrs Grote sends me her vol: of "Collected Papers", and some unpublished records of our time, - very interesting. They and I seemed to have rushed into a more vigorous intercourse than ever, as by a sort of accident'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

[n/a] : Spectator, The

'Fan Arnold lends me the "Spectator", and at first I thought it a treat in its way: but I am getting as tired of it as some other people are. Its smartness is degenerating into impertinence very fast; and its insolence is so absurd in partnership with its incredible ignorance of the world and of social matters'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Frances Edgeworth ? : [possibly] A Memoir of Maria Edgeworth, with a Selection from her Letters by the late Mrs Edgeworth

'The two most interesting books I have read for some time are the Edgeworth Memoir (Lady Strangford's copy) and Ld Grey's 2 vols: of Correspondce between his father and Wm 4th (Lady Elgin's copy). I must not begin on either of them, or I shall write myself dead. I could not have supposed that any book could stir me as the Edgeworth correspondence does...'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Henry, Earl Grey : The reform act, 1832; the correspondence of the late Earl Grey with His Majesty King William IV. and with Sir Herbert Taylor, from Nov. 1830 to June 1832

'The two most interesting books I have read for some time are the Edgeworth Memoir (Lady Strangford's copy) and Ld Grey's 2 vols: of Correspondce between his father and Wm 4th (Lady Elgin's copy). I must not begin on either of them, or I shall write myself dead. I could not have supposed that any book could stir me as the Edgeworth correspondence does...'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Edward Bulwer-Lytton : Lost Tales of Miletus, The

'I don't know whether I shall lose your good opinion forever if I tell you a true thing; but I had rather you knew the worst: - that I am intensely enjoying, this day or two, "The Lost Tales of Miletus".'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : The Globe (Newspaper)

"My beloved time of day was when the cloth was drawn, and I stole away from the dessert,".."and again at a subsequent time when I took to newspaper reading very heartily"..."our newspaper was the Globe,"

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

 : The Monthly Repository

'In a poor little struggling Unitarian periodical, the Monthly Repository, in which I made my first appearance in print, a youth, named Thomas Noon Talfourd, was about this time making his first attempts at authorship. [...] it was rather too luscious for my taste,[...] but it served to mislead me about Malthus.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

William Shakespeare : unknown

'My beloved hour of the day was when the [table] cloth was drawn, and I stole away from the dessert, and read Shakspere by firelight in winter in the drawing-room. My mother was kind enough to allow this breach of good family manners; and again at a subsequent time when I took to newspaper reading very heartily [...] Our newspaper was the Globe'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : [Books on logic]

Harriet Martineau on period spent with relatives at Bristol: 'I read some analytical books, on logic and rhetoric [...] I read a good deal of History too'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : [Books on rhetoric]

Harriet Martineau on period spent with relatives at Bristol: 'I read some analytical books, on logic and rhetoric [...] I read a good deal of History too'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : [History books]

Harriet Martineau on period spent with relatives at Bristol: 'I read some analytical books, on logic and rhetoric [...] I read a good deal of History too'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

John Milton : L'Allegro

'Mr. Perry tried upon us [at school in Norwich] the reading of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso; and it failed utterly [...] Not long after he was gone, I read both pieces in the nursery, one day; and straightway went into a transport, as if I had discovered myself in possession of a new sense.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

John Milton : Il Penseroso

'Mr. Perry tried upon us [at school in Norwich] the reading of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso; and it failed utterly [...] Not long after he was gone, I read both pieces in the nursery, one day; and straightway went into a transport, as if I had discovered myself in possession of a new sense.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Hugh Blair : Rhetoric

'At the same time [as undertaking studies in Italian], I went on studying Blair's Rhetoric [...] and inclining mightily to every kind of book or process which could improve my literary skill'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : The Bible

Harriet Martineau on Bible studies in early adulthood: 'I studied the Bible incessantly and immensely; both by daily reading of chapters [...] and by getting hold of all commentaries and works of elucidation that I could lay my hands on. A work of Dr. Carpenter's, begun but never finished, called "Notes and Observations on the Gospel History" [...] first put me on this track of study [...] It was while reading Mr. Kenrick's translation from the German of "Helon's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem," with which I was thoroughly bewitched, that I conceived [...] the audacious idea of giving a somewhat resembling account of the Jews and their country, under the immediate expectation of the Messiah, and even in his presence'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Dr Carpenter : Notes and Observations on the Gospel History

Harriet Martineau on Bible studies in early adulthood: 'I studied the Bible incessantly and immensely; both by daily reading of chapters [...] and by getting hold of all commentaries and works of elucidation that I could lay my hands on. A work of Dr. Carpenter's, begun but never finished, called "Notes and Observations on the Gospel History" [...] first put me on this track of study [...] It was while reading Mr. Kenrick's translation from the German of "Helon's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem," with which I was thoroughly bewitched, that I conceived [...] the audacious idea of giving a somewhat resembling account of the Jews and their country, under the immediate expectation of the Messiah, and even in his presence'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Mr Kenrick : Helon's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Harriet Martineau on Bible studies in early adulthood: 'I studied the Bible incessantly and immensely; both by daily reading of chapters [...] and by getting hold of all commentaries and works of elucidation that I could lay my hands on. A work of Dr. Carpenter's, begun but never finished, called "Notes and Observations on the Gospel History" [...] first put me on this track of study [...] It was while reading Mr. Kenrick's translation from the German of "Helon's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem," with which I was thoroughly bewitched, that I conceived [...] the audacious idea of giving a somewhat resembling account of the Jews and their country, under the immediate expectation of the Messiah, and even in his presence'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

David Hartley : unknown

Harriet Martineau on philosophical studies in early adulthood: 'The edition of Hartley that I used was Dr. Priestley's [...] That book I studied with a fervour and perseverance which made it perhaps the most important book in the world to me, except the bible'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Dugald Stewart : unknown

Harriet Martineau on philosophical studies in early adulthood: 'I surrendered myself [...] to the charm of Dugald Stewart's writings'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : unknown

Harriet Martineau on a stay with her brother and his wife at Torquay in spring 1823: 'It was my office to read aloud for many hours of each day [...] Before breakfast, and while he [the brother] enjoyed his classical reading on the sofa, I rambled about the neighbourhood of Torquay, -- sometimes sketching, sometimes reading'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

 : The Globe

'Houlston [Harriet Martineau's publisher] wrote to ask for another story of somewhat more substance and bulk [than the first two he had taken from her]. My "Globe" newspaper readings suggested to me the subject of Machine-breaking as a good one'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Mrs Marcet : Conversations on Political Economy

'It was in the autumn of 1827, I think, that a neighbour lent my [Harriet Martineau's] sister Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Political Economy." I took up the book, chiefly to see what Political Economy precisely was; and great was my surprise to find that I had been teaching it unawares, in my stories about Machinery and Wages.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : The Koran

Harriet Martineau mentions using 'Sale's Koran', borrowed from a public library, in preparation for entering a Central Unitarian Assocation competition for the best essay explaining Unitarianism to 'Mohammedans'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Faust

Harriet Martineau on German studies continued during stay in Kent: 'There I refreshed myself among pretty scenery, fresh air, and pleasant drives [...] and with the study of Faust at night'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : [Texts on American geography and politics]

'During the period of the writing of the three Series, -- the Political Economy, Taxation, and Poor-laws -- I never remember but once sitting down to read whatever I pleased. That was a summer evening [...] I sat down to study the geography and relations of the States of the American Union; and extremely interesting I found it'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Lichtenstein : "South Africa"

Harriet Martineau on reading for research toward her series of 'Tales', during 1832: 'The scenery was furnished by books of travel obtained from the Public Library [...] The books of travel were Lichtenstein's South Africa for "Life in the Wilds:" Edwards's (and others') "West Indies" for "Demerara;" and McCulloch's "Highlands and Islands of Scotland" for the two Garveloch stories.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Edwards : "West Indies"

Harriet Martineau on reading for research toward her series of 'Tales', during 1832: 'The scenery was furnished by books of travel obtained from the Public Library [...] The books of travel were Lichtenstein's South Africa for "Life in the Wilds:" Edwards's (and others') "West Indies" for "Demerara;" and McCulloch's "Highlands and Islands of Scotland" for the two Garveloch stories.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

McCulloch : "Highlands and Islands of Scotland"

Harriet Martineau on reading for research toward her series of 'Tales', during 1832: 'The scenery was furnished by books of travel obtained from the Public Library [...] The books of travel were Lichtenstein's South Africa for "Life in the Wilds:" Edwards's (and others') "West Indies" for "Demerara;" and McCulloch's "Highlands and Islands of Scotland" for the two Garveloch stories.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Harriet Martineau : "Weal and Woe in Garveloch"

Harriet Martineau on her concerns about the acceptability of some of her writings: 'While writing "Weal and Woe in Garveloch," the perspiration many a time streamed down my face, though I knew there was not a line in it which might not be read aloud in any family. The misery arose from my seeing how the simplest statements and reasonings might and probably would be perverted [...] when the number was finished, I read it aloud to my mother and aunt [...] they were as complacent and easy as they had been interested and attentive.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

unknown : [Article attacking Harriet Martineau]

Harriet Martineau describes reading, on Good Friday 1833, a 'forthcoming' number of the "Quarterly Review" containing a negative review of her work, lent to her by a clergyman the day previous to its publication, and at his request '[marking] all the lies in the margin'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : [Blue-book on Ireland]

Harriet Martineau, on research toward volumes in her 'Series of Tales': 'For "Ireland" and "Homes Abroad,": 'I obtained facts from Blue-books on Ireland and Colonization which were among the many by this time sent to me by people who had "hobbies."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : [Blue-book on "Colonization"]

Harriet Martineau, on research toward volumes in her 'Series of Tales': 'For "Ireland" and "Homes Abroad,": 'I obtained facts from Blue-books on Ireland and Colonization which were amongthe many by this time sent to me by people who had "hobbies."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

William Shakespeare : Hamlet

'[Robert Owen] told me [Harriet Martineau] that he knew the Bible so well as to have been heartily sick of it in his early youth. He owned that he had never read it since. He promised to read the four Gospels carefeully, if I would read "Hamlet" with a running commentary of Necessarian doctrine in my own mind [...] I fulfilled the engagement'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Sir William Temple : [work on Holland]

Harriet Martineau, on research for a story on Bills of Exchange to be set either in Holland or South America: 'I thought Holland on the whole the more convenient of the two; so I dipped into some book about that country (Sir William Temple, I believe it was), picked out the two ugliest Dutch names I could find, made them into a firm, and boldly advertised them.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Maria Graham : unknown

Harriet Martineau, on her research for a story to be set in Ceylon: 'I gathered what I could from books, but really feared being obliged to give up a singularly good illustrative scene for want of the commonest facts concerning the social life of the Cingalese. I found scarcely anything even in Maria Graham and Heber. At this precise time, a friend happened to bring to my lodging [...] Sir Alexander Johnstone, who had just returned from governing Ceylon [...] Before we had known one another half an hour, I confided to him my difficulty. He started off [...] and was soon at the door again, with his carriage full of books, prints and other illustrations [...] Among the volumes he left with me was a Columbo almanack, which furnished me with names, notices of customs, and other valuable matters.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Heber : unknown

Harriet Martineau, on her research for a story to be set in Ceylon: 'I gathered what I could from books, but really feared being obliged to give up a singularly good illustrative scene for want of the commonest facts concerning the social life of the Cingalese. I found scarcely anything even in Maria Graham and Heber. At this precise time, a friend happened to bring to my lodging [...] Sir Alexander Johnstone, who had just returned from governing Ceylon [...] Before we had known one another half an hour, I confided to him my difficulty. He started of [...] and was soon at the door again, with his carriage full of books, prints and other illustrations [...] Among the volumes he left with me was a Columbo almanack, which furnished me with names, notices of customs, and other valuable matters.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Columbo almanack

Harriet Martineau, on her research for a story to be set in Ceylon: 'I gathered what I could from books, but really feared being obliged to give up a singularly good illustrative scene for want of the commonest facts concerning the social life of the Cingalese. I found scarcely anything even in Maria Graham and Heber. At this precise time, a friend happened to bring to my lodging [...] Sir Alexander Johnstone, who had just returned from governing Ceylon [...] Before we had known one another half an hour, I confided to him my difficulty. He started of [...] and was soon at the door again, with his carriage full of books, prints and other illustrations [...] Among the volumes he left with me was a Columbo almanack, which furnished me with names, notices of customs, and other valuable matters.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : The Times

'I [Harriet Martineau] sent the first copy I could get [of her two "Excise" stories, "The Jerseymen Meeting" and "The Jerseymen Parting"] to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a day and a half before he brought out his Budget. When I opened the "Times," the morning after, I was highly amused at seeing that he had made a curious alteration in his intentions about the saddle-horse duty'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Robert Southey : Life and Correspondence

'After reading Southey's Life and Correspondence, the maintenance of that friendship [between the conservative Southey and the more radical William Taylor] appears to me [Harriet Martineau] more singular than when we young people used to catch a glimpse in the street [at Norwich] of the author of "Thalaba" and "Kehama."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

R. Monckton Milnes : poems

'My [Harriet Martineau's] pleasure in [R. Monckton Milnes's poems] was greatest when I read them in my Tynemouth solitude. My copy is marked all over with hieroglyhics involving the emotions with which I read them.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Fanny Kemble : Journal

'I [Harriet Martineau] saw much of Fanny [Kemble] in America [...] She showed me the proof-sheets of her clever "Journal," and, as she chose to require my opinion of it, obtained a less flattering one than from most people [...] I was sufficiently shocked at certain passages to induce her to cancel some thirty pages.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Manuscript: proofs

  

Mrs Marsh : Two Old Men's Tales (including The Admiral's Daughter)

'Mrs. Marsh asked me what I thought of getting her tales published. I offered to try if, on reading the manuscript at home, I thought as well of it ["The Admiral's Daughter"] as after her own most moving delivery of it. A second reading left no doubt in my mind; and I had the pleasure of introducing the "Two Old Men's Tales" to the world through Messrs. Saunders and Otley'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Manuscript: Unknown

  

William Godwin : Caleb Williams

'[Wiliam Godwin] told me [Harriet Martineau] [...] that he wrote the first half of "Caleb William" in three months, and then stopped for six, -- finishing it in three more. This pause in the middle of a work so intense seems to me a remarkable incident. I have often intended to read "Caleb Williams" again, to try whether I could find the stopping place: but it has never fallen in my way, and I have not seen the book since my youth.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Robert Browning : Paracelsus

Harriet Martineau on her first acquaintance with Robert Browning's poetry, 'a wonderful event': 'Mr. Macready put "Paracelsus" into my hand, when I was staying at his house, and I read a canto before going to bed. For the first time in my life, I passed a whole night without sleeping a wink.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Robert Browning : Sordello

'The unbounded expectation I [Harriet Martineau] formed from "Paracelsus"[...] was sadly disappointed when "Sordello" came out. I was so wholly unable to understand it that I supposed myself ill.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Miss Kelty : The Favourite of Nature

'Among the eminent women who sought my [Harriet Martineau's] acquaintance by letter [in the early 1830s], and whom I have never seen, [is] [...] Miss Kelty, the author of the first successful "religious novel," "the Favourite of Nature," which I remember reading with much pleasure in my youth.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Miss Kelty : Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling

'Among the eminent women who sought my [Harriet Martineau's] acquaintance by letter [in the early 1830s], and whom I have never seen, [is] [...] Miss Kelty [...] I have lately received from her her autobiography, published under the title of "Reminiscences of Thought and Feeling." It is a painfully impressive biography; but [...] Systems of religion and philosophy are evidently something very different to her from what they are to me [...] But I am glad to have read the Memoir, and glad that it exists [...] for it is a striking emanation of the spirit of the time'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Thomas Moore : Lalla Rookh

The elderly Harriet Martineau reflects upon her altered reading capacity: 'I could not now read "Lalla Rookh" through before breakfast, as I did when it appeared. I cannot read new novels [...] while I can read with more pleasure than ever the old favourites, -- Miss Austen's and Scott's. My pleasure in Voyages and Travels is almost an insanity'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Walter Scott : novels

The elderly Harriet Martineau reflects upon her altered reading capacity: 'I could not now read "Lalla Rookh" through before breakfast, as I did when it appeared. I cannot read new novels [...] while I can read with more pleasure than ever the old favourites, -- Miss Austen's and Scott's. My pleasure in Voyages and Travels is almost an insanity'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Jane Austen : novels

The elderly Harriet Martineau reflects upon her altered reading capacity: 'I could not now read "Lalla Rookh" through before breakfast, as I did when it appeared. I cannot read new novels [...] while I can read with more pleasure than ever the old favourites, -- Miss Austen's and Scott's. My pleasure in Voyages and Travels is almost an insanity'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : travel writing

The elderly Harriet Martineau reflects upon her altered reading capacity: 'I could not now read "Lalla Rookh" through before breakfast, as I did when it appeared. I cannot read new novels [...] while I can read with more pleasure than ever the old favourites, -- Miss Austen's and Scott's. My pleasure in Voyages and Travels is almost an insanity'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

unknown : [Article on St. Domingo]

'I [Harriet Martineau] was completely carried away by the article on St. Domingo in the Quarterly Review, (vol.xxi.) which I lighted upon, one day at this time [c.1837], while looking for the noted article on the Grecian philosophy in the same volume. I pursued the study of Toussaint L'Ouverture's character in the Biographie Universelle; and though it is badly done [...] the real man shone into my mind'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : Biographie Universelle

'I [Harriet Martineau] was completely carried away by the article on St. Domingo in the Quarterly Review, (vol.xxi.) which I lighted upon, one day at this time [c.1837], while looking for the noted article on the Grecian philosophy in the same volume. I pursued the study of Toussaint L'Ouverture's character in the Biographie Universelle; and though it is badly done [...] the real man shone into my mind'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

unknown : [Police report]

Harriet Martineau, on inspiration for an ultimately abandoned novel: 'There was a police report, during that winter [?1837], -- very brief, -- only one short paragraph, -- which moved me profoundly, and which I was sure I could work out into a novel of the deepest interest.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

unknown : unknown

From Harriet Martineau's account of Queen Victoria's coronation: 'About nine, the first gleams of the sun slanted into the abbey [...] The brightness, vastness, and dreamy magnificence of the scene produced a strange effect of exhaustion and sleepiness [...] I determined to withdraw my senses from the scene, in order to reserve my strength [...] for the ceremonial to come. I had carried a book; and I read and ate a sandwich, leaning against my friendly pillar, till I felt refreshed.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Order of Queen Victoria's coronation service

From Harriet Martineau's account of Queen Victoria's coronation: 'I remember remarking to my mother on the impiety of the service, when a copy of it was kindly sent to me the evening before'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Thomas De Quincey : [article]

Harriet Martineau on inspirations and research for her story 'Settlers at Hoime': 'Tait's Magazine of last year had an article of De Quincy's which made me think of snow-storms for a story: -- then it occurred to me that floods were less hackneyed [...] Floods suggested Lincolnshire for the scene, and Lauder's book (Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's "Floods in Morayshire," read many years before) for the material. For Lincolnshire I looked into the Penny Cyclopedia, and there found references to other articles'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Sir Thomas Dick Lauder : Floods in Morayshire

Harriet Martineau on inspirations and research for her story 'Settlers at Hoime': 'Tait's Magazine of last year had an article of De Quincy's which made me think of snow-storms for a story: -- then it occurred to me that floods were less hackneyed [...] Floods suggested Lincolnshire for the scene, and Lauder's book (Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's "Floods in Morayshire," read many years before) for the material. For Lincolnshire I looked into the Penny Cyclopedia, and there found references to other articles'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Penny Cyclopedia

Harriet Martineau on inspirations and research for her story 'Settlers at Hoime': 'Tait's Magazine of last year had an article of De Quincy's which made me think of snow-storms for a story: -- then it occurred to me that floods were less hackneyed [...] Floods suggested Lincolnshire for the scene, and Lauder's book (Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's "Floods in Morayshire," read many years before) for the material. For Lincolnshire I looked into the Penny Cyclopedia, and there found references to other articles'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Laing : [work on Norway]

Harriet Martineau on inspirations for her story 'Feats on the Fjord': 'Mr Laing's book on Norway fell in my way, and set my imagination floating on the fjords [...] I procured Inglis's Travels and every thing that I could get hold of about the state of Norway while connected with Denmark; and hence arose "Feats on the Fjord."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Inglis : Travels

Harriet Martineau on inspirations for her story 'Feats on the Fjord': 'Mr Laing's book on Norway fell in my way, and set my imagination floating on the fjords [...] I procured Inglis's Travels and every thing that I could get hold of about the state of Norway while connected with Denmark; and hence arose "Feats on the Fjord."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Heeren : unknown

Harriet Martineau to 'Mr Atkinson', 7 November 1847: 'Tomorrow morning I begin upon my (necessary) sketch of the history of Egypt; and in preparation I have been reading again Heeren and Warburton [...] I cannot but dissent from their inferences [...] For instance, Warburton declares that rulers have ever strenuously taught the people the doctrines of a future life, and reward and punishment, without believing them'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Warburton : unknown

Harriet Martineau to 'Mr Atkinson', 7 November 1847: 'Tomorrow morning I begin upon my (necessary) sketch of the history of Egypt; and in preparation I have been reading again Heeren and Warburton [...] I cannot but dissent from their inferences [...] For instance, Warburton declares that rulers have ever strenuously taught the people the doctrines of a future life, and reward and punishment, without believing them'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charlotte Bronte : Jane Eyre

'When I [Harriet Martineau] read ["Jane Eyre"], I was convinced that it was by some friend of my own, who had portions of my childish experience in his or her mind.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Harriet Martineau : Letter to Assistant poor-law Commissioner

'I [Harriet Martineau] wrote a letter [...] to an Assistant Poor-law Commissioner, who was earnest in his endeavours to get workhouses supplied with milk and vegetables, by the labour of the inmates on the land. To my amazement, I found my letter in the "Times," one day while I was at Bolton.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Mr Atkinson : Letter on "distribution of the brain"

'When "Currer" [Charlotte Bronte] and I [Harriet Martineau] came home, there were proof-sheets [of Martineau's correspondence with Atkinson] lying; and I read her Mr. Atkinson's three letters about the distribution of the brain.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: In proof

  

Auguste Comte : unknown

Harriet Martineau on the inspirations for her project of translating Comte: 'I obtained something like a clear preparatory view, at second-hand, from a friend [...] What I learned then [...] impelled me to study the great book for myself; and in the spring of 1851 [...] I got the book, and set to work. I had meantime looked at Lewes's chapter on Comte in Mr. Knight's Weekly Volume, and at Littre's epitome'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

G.H. Lewes : Chapter on Auguste Comte

Harriet Martineau on the inspirations for her project of translating Comte: 'I obtained something like a clear preparatory view, at second-hand, from a friend [...] What I learned then [...] impelled me to study the great book for myself; and in the spring of 1851 [...] I got the book, and set to work. I had meantime looked at Lewes's chapter on Comte in Mr. Knight's Weekly Volume, and at Littre's epitome'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Littre : "epitome" (relating to Auguste Comte)

Harriet Martineau on the inspirations for her project of translating Comte: 'I obtained something like a clear preparatory view, at second-hand, from a friend [...] What I learned then [...] impelled me to study the great book for myself; and in the spring of 1851 [...] I got the book, and set to work. I had meantime looked at Lewes's chapter on Comte in Mr. Knight's Weekly Volume, and at Littre's epitome'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

William Makepeace Thackeray : The Irish Sketch-Book by M. A. Titmarsh

'My [Harriet Martineau's] first real interest in [Thackeray] arose from reading M. A. Titmarsh in Ireland, during my Tynemouth illness.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

William Makepeace Thackeray : The History of Henry Esmond Esq

'"Esmond" appears to me [Harriet Martineau] [italics]the [end italics] book of the century, in its department. I have read it three times; and each time with new wonder at its rich ripe wisdom, and at the singular charm of Esmond's own character.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

William Makepeace Thackeray : The History of Pendennis

'While at Cromer [...] I read "Pendennis" with such intense enjoyment [...] that the notion of trying my hand once more at a novel seized upon me'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Bible

Mr Gilman of South Carolina to his brother, 1835, on visit from Harriet Martineau: 'She found out our hours of family prayer and always came in most punctually with her favourite Bible, the Porteusian edition, which she reads more than any other book.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : hymns

Mr Gilman of South Carolina to his brother, 1835, on visit from Harriet Martineau: 'Dining out frequently [...] as soon as she came home at night, and had read at my request a devotional hymn in her own sweet and primitive manner, she would take Caroline on one side and me on the other, and [...] would enchain and enchant us until long after midnight'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Norton : Work "in disproof of Trinitarian doctrines"

Harriet Martineau's American Journal, 31 October 1834: 'Read Norton's excellent, but supercilious, truth-telling Preface to work in disproof of Trinitarian doctrines, and some of the chapters [...] Read some of Palfrey's Sermons [...] Read Reports of Blind Institution at Philadelphia: of House of Refuge, interesting [...] and of Penitentiary, interesting.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Palfrey : Sermons

Harriet Martineau's American Journal, 31 October 1834: 'Read Norton's excellent, but supercilious, truth-telling Preface to work in disproof of Trinitarian doctrines, and some of the chapters [...] Read some of Palfrey's Sermons [...] Read Reports of Blind Institution at Philadelphia: of House of Refuge, interesting [...] and of Penitentiary, interesting.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : [Institutional reports]

Harriet Martineau's American Journal, 31 October 1834: 'Read Norton's excellent, but supercilious, truth-telling Preface to work in disproof of Trinitarian doctrines, and some of the chapters [...] Read some of Palfrey's Sermons [...] Read Reports of Blind Institution at Philadelphia: of House of Refuge, interesting [...] and of Penitentiary, interesting.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Thomas Carlyle : Article on Burns

Harriet Martineau, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Journal, 14 January [?1835]: 'Read Carlyle's article on Burns. Was mightily cheered and lifted up by it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Edward Gibbon : Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 6 September 1837: 'I read Gibbon. It makes me dread a single literary life, so selfish, so vain and blind, as ths great man grew to be!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Edward Gibbon : correspondence

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 6 September 1837: 'Read Gibbon's correspondence. Selfish, vain creature! -- beyond almost all I ever read of.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Penny Magazine

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 8 September 1837: 'Looked over frescoes from the Niebelungen Lied, in Penny Magazine.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Edward Gibbon : Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 10 September 1837: 'Read Gibbon. Selfish, vain, unhappy man! [goes on to discuss Gibbon]'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Harriet Martineau : Retrospect

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 10 September 1837: 'Read to Mrs ---- my last chapters of my first volume of "Retrospect." She says the book will do.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Charles Lamb : Letters

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 24 September 1837: 'Revelled in Lamb's letters. What an exquisite specimen is that man of our noble, wonderful, frail humanity!'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Harriet Martineau : article on Sedgwick

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 24 September 1837: '[italics]Evening[end italics] Read [...] to my mother [...] my Sedgwick article, which she likes.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

 : Anti-slavery documents

Harriet Martineau, Journal,1 October 1837: 'This morning I read the anti-slavery documents.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Pascal : Pensees

Harriet Martineau, Journal,1 October 1837: '[italics]Evening[end italics]. -- Read some of Pascal's "Pensees". They show great knowledge of men [...] they are very gloomy; but I do love these speculative writers.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Felkin : Report on working classes of Nottingham

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 9 October 1837: 'I read Felkin's excellent report on the working-classes of Nottingham, showing clearly that there are resources enough for all necessary comfort [...] but that fathers spend nearly all their resources, almost, on themselves.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Channing : Texas

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 10 October 1837: 'Read some of Channing's "Texas."'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Beaumont : Marie

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 12 October 1837: 'Read some of Beaumont's "Marie." Sentimental and un-American'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Richard Hildreth : Archy Moore

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 19 October 1837: 'At night, read some of "Archy Moore." A terrible story, which stirred me deeply [...] It is truer than any slave-story I ever read.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Whateley : Review of Jane Austen

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 23 October 1837: 'I read Whateley's review of Miss Austen. Good, but not particularly striking.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Ralph Waldo Emerson : oration

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 7 November 1837: 'Read Waldo Emerson's oration. Though fanciful, it has much truth and beauty. It moved, roused, soothed and consoled me.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Lord Brougham : speech on education

Harriet Martineau, Journal, late November 1837: 'Read some of Brougham's education speech, but not all; so have no judgement to give.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

 : newspaper

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 5 December 1837: 'Read the newspaper aloud.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Hall : 

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 6 December 1837: 'Read some of Hall in afternoon, till time to dress for ball.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Robert Southey : article on British [?Monarchism]

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 11 December 1837: '"Evening".-- Read aloud Southey's famous article in the Quarterly on British Monachism [sic]. Entertaining, but with a vain attempt to prop up Lady Isabella King's institution.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Harriet Martineau : Loom and Lugger

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 16 December 1837: 'Morning, read one of my own stories, -- "Loom and Lugger." Was quite disappointed in it. It has capital material, but is obscure, and not simple enough.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

William Shakespeare : A Midsummer Night's Dream

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 16 December 1837: 'Read Midsummer Night's Dream in the evening. Surprised to find how completely I remembered it.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Pictorial Bible

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 20 December 1837: '[italics]Afternoon[end italics] Read in the Pictorial Bible, which is to me very interesting.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Daniel Defoe : A Journal of the Plague Year

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 28 December 1837: 'Read Defoe's "Plague." Was somewhat disappointed [...] The best part is where he describes the reception of the news of the decrease in the bills of mortality.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : article on "Mademoiselle Gautier"

Harriet Martineau, Journal, [?6] January 1838: 'Read, in Blackwood, article on Mademoiselle Gautier, a devotee, -- much like other devotees, whose tales are, however, very instructive.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

? J. G. ?Lockhart : Life of Scott (vol. 6)

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 7 January 1838: 'Read Life of Scott, Vol. VI. It is far more interesting than the former ones'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Jane Austen : Pride and Prejudice

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 9 January 1838: 'Read "Pride and Prejudice" again last night. I think it as clever as before.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Jane Austen : Pride and Prejudice

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 9 January 1838: 'Finished Judges, in Pictorial Bible, which is a great treat to me. Finished "Pride and Prejudice." It is wonderfully clever, and Miss Austen seems much afraid of pathos.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : (Book of) Judges

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 9 January 1838: 'Finished Judges, in Pictorial Bible, which is a great treat to me. Finished "Pride and Prejudice." It is wonderfully clever, and Miss Austen seems much afraid of pathos.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Moliere : Les Precieuses Ridicules

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 10 January 1838: 'Read "Les Precieuses Ridicules," which did not amuse me very much; though acted I can fancy it capital.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Jane Austen : Northanger Abbey

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 11 January 1838: 'Read "Northanger Abbey." Capital: found two touches of pathos.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Channing : Texas

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 14 January 1838: 'Read Channing's "Texas," and found it nobler than ever before [...] Read aloud Southey's article in the Quarterly on Cemeteries; much learning, but little interest.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Robert Southey : Article on cemeteries

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 14 January 1838: 'Read Channing's "Texas," and found it nobler than ever before [...] Read aloud Southey's article in the Quarterly on Cemeteries; much learning, but little interest.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : Article on Grecian philosophy

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 15 January 1838: 'Probably the greatest day of my year. While I was reading one article in the twenty-first volume of the Quarterly, on Greek philosophy, there being an article in the same number on Hayti, it flashed across me that my novel must be on the Haytian revolution, and Toussaint my hero.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : [Work on/by Smedley]

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 16 January 1838: 'Wrote notes and letters, and then sat down to read Smedley. What a tale of privation and suffering! total deafness first, -- then gradual incapacity of every sort [...] He was a hack writer and small poet.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Jane Austen : Emma

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 18 January 1838: 'Read much of "Emma" this evening'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : Speeches to Boston meeting (anti-slavery?)

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 18 February 1838: 'Read beautiful speeches at the Lovejoy meeting in Boston, in the "Liberator."'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

 : Gospel of John

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 30 June 1838: 'Read the Gospel of John in Porteusian Bible.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : American newspapers

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 26 August 1838: 'Very happy in reading American newspapers.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Newspaper

  

Leigh Hunt (ed) : The Examiner

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 1 January 1840: 'Read Examiner [...] but could not write at all. Made a cap, therefore.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

  

Wilberforce : unknown

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 3 January 1840: '[italics]Evening[end italics]. -- Read Wilberforce, and looked over Dr. Crowther's book.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Dr Crowther : unknown

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 3 January 1840: '[italics]Evening[end italics]. -- Read Wilberforce, and looked over Dr. Crowther's book.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Thom : account of "Oxford Movement"

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 4 January 1840: 'Read Mr. Thom's account of the Oxford theology, drawn from their own writings: good [...] Have been reading Wilberforce: grows twaddling in his old age, through want of cultivation of mind. Very noble, however, -- his keeping back Brougham's pledge about the Queen, and silently suffering universal censure.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

William Wilberforce : unknown

Harriet Martineau, Journal, 4 January 1840: 'Read Mr. Thom's account of the Oxford theology, drawn from their own writings: good [...] Have been reading Wilberforce: grows twaddling in his old age, through want of cultivation of mind. Very noble, however, -- his keeping back Brougham's pledge about the Queen, and silently suffering universal censure.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

 : Right and Wrong among the Abolitionists of the United States

Harriet Martineau to Elizabeth Pease, 27 February 1841: 'I have read the statements in "Right and Wrong among the Abolitionists of the United States", with respect to the differences between the two antislavery societies in America, with a strong and painful interest [...] I am not more firmly persuaded of anything, than that those who [...] listen to one side only, or refuse to hear either, are doing the deepest injury in their power to the antislavery cause'.

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Alfred Tennyson : In Memoriam A. H. H.

Harriet Martineau to E. J. Furnival, 5 October 1851, thanking him for a copy of Tennyson's "In Memoriam": 'Like most other people (whom I have met with, at least), I shrank from a whole volume of published griefs; and the more, because I knew Arthur Hallam [...] I began to cut and read last night; and I stopped at last, by a virtuous effort, from the feeling that I ought not to be able to take in so much at once, -- that I ought to spread it out [...] I cannot honestly say that I had anything like so much pleasure from "The Princess." There are bits of wisdom and beauty [...] but the impression of the whole is more than odd; -- it is very disagreeable, to my feeling. It does not follow that I am not glad to know it'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Alfred Tennyson : The Princess

Harriet Martineau to E. J. Furnival, 5 October 1851, thanking him for a copy of Tennyson's [italics]In Memoriam[end italics]: 'Like most other people (whom I have met with, at least), I shrank from a whole volume of published griefs; and the more, because I knew Arthur Hallam [...] I began to cut and read last night; and I stopped at last, by a virtuous effort, from the feeling that I ought not to be able to take in so much at once, -- that I ought to spread it out [...] I cannot honestly say that I had anything like so much pleasure from "The Princess." There are bits of wisdom and beauty [...] but the impression of the whole is more than odd; -- it is very disagreeable, to my feeling. It does not follow that I am not glad to know it'.

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Louisa May Alcott : Transcendental Wild Oats (article)

From chapter entitled 'Conversations' in Maria Weston Chapman's 'Memorials' of Harriet Martineau: 'Reading an article of Miss Alcott's, she [Martineau] says, "Transcendental Wild Oats"! -- what a capital title! It has genius in it."'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Unknown

  

Lucas : Secularia: Surveys on the Main Stream of History

Harriet Martineau, in letter of 8 July 1862: 'If Mr. Lucas's book should come in your way ("Secularia: Surveys on the Main Stream of History") do look at the chapter last but one, -- "Absolutism in Extremis," -- for his revelations of the conditions and perplexity of French politics. To my taste this book is charming, though he and I differ about American politics. Nearly all the rest is a very great treat to me.'

Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

John Forster : The Life of Charles Dickens

Harriet Martineau, in letter of 20 March 1873: 'The Life of Dickens is far too exclusively occupied with his personal relations with Forster [...] Yet it has an interest, and is worth reading. In the second volume I am much struck by Dickens's hysterical restlessness [...] To how great an extent the women of his family are ignored in the book! The whole impression left by it is very melancholy.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Curtis : Eulogy on Charles Sumner

Harriet Martineau to Mrs F. G. Shaw, 17 July 1874: 'I wish to send you my thanks [...] for sending me what I so much wished to see as Mr. Curtis's "Eulogy" on his friend [Charles Sumner]. It is very beautiful, and in ways which are not interfered with by differences of opinion in regard to its subject.'

Unknown
Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Walter Scott : The Bride of Lammermoor

Harriet Martineau, in postscript to letter written in the month before her death, to 'Mr. Atkinson', 19 May 1876: 'I am in a state of amazement at a discovery just made; I have read (after half a lifetime) Scott's "Bride of Lammermoor," and am utterly disappointed in it. The change in my taste is beyond accounting for, -- almost beyond belief.'

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

James Edward Austen-Leigh : A Memoir of Jane Austen

"Jane Austen herself, the Queen of novelists, the immortal creator of Anne Elliott, Mr Knightley, and a score or two more of unrivalled intimate friends of the whole public, was compelled by the feelings of her family to cover up her manuscripts with a large piece of muslin work."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Lowth : Lowth's Prelections in Latin

"Now it was meeting James at seven in the morning to read Lowth's Prelections in the Latin,"

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Tacitus : Agricola

"Now it was translating Tacitus, in order to try what was the utmost compression of style that I could attain.".."I went into such an enthusiasm over the original, and especially over the celebrated concluding passage, that I thought I would translate it, and correct it by Dr Aitkins, which I could procure from our public library".

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Dr Aitkin : Translation of the Agricola of Tacitus

"Now it was translating Tacitus, in order to try what was the utmost compression of style that I could attain.".."I went into such an enthusiasm over the original, and especially over the celebrated concluding passage, that I thought I would translate it, and correct it by Dr Aitkins, which I could procure from our public library".

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : The Bible

"I studied the Bible incessantly and immensely;both by daily reading of chapters,after the approved but mischievous method, and by getting hold of all commentries and works of elucidation that I could lay my hands on."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Dr Carpenter : Notes and Observations on the Gospel History

"A work of Dr Carpenter's,begun but never finished,called "Notes and Observations on the Gospel history", which his catechuments used in class, first put me on this track of study.-the results of which appeared some years afterwards in my "Traditions of Palestine".

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Dr Carpenter : Articles: Mental and Moral Philosophy & Systemic Education

"Dr Carpenter was inclined also to the study of philosophy,and wrote on it,-on mental and moral philosophy;and this was enough,putting all predisposition out of the question,to determine me to the study. He was of the Locke and Hartley school altogether, as his articles on 'Mental and Moral Philosophy' in Ree's Encyclopedia,and his work on 'Systemic Education' show."

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Mr Kendrick : Translation of 'Helons Pilgrimage from Jerusalem'

"It was while reading Mr Kendrick's translation from the German of 'Helon's Pilgrimage to Jerusalem',with which I was thoroughly bewitched, that I conceived, and communicated to James, the audacious idea of giving a somewhat resembling account of the Jews and their country, under the immediate expectation of the Messiah, and even in his presence, while abstaining from permitting more than his shadow to pass over the scene.""I regard that little volume witha a stronger affection than any other of my works but one;-that one being"Eastern Life".

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Elizabeth Barrett : The Dead Pan

Harriet Martineau to Elizabeth Barrett, 1 August 1843: 'I owe to you many many moments of pleasure, some ideas (rare gifts in this age!) & no small feeling of complacency from your permission to my dear Mrs Reid to bring me your very noble poem, Pan Departed [sic]. The stanzas of that poem have run in my head, & raised my thought, ever since the first reading [...] May I add that I would sacrifice the whole poem, -- throw it into the fire, -- if the name & offices of Christ did not stand in it exactly as they do.'

Unknown
Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      

  

Elizabeth Barrett : The Seraphim

Harriet Martineau to Elizabeth Barrett, 16 October 1843: 'Lady M. Lambton discharged her commission punctually, bringing me your precious volume before 1st of Sepr. Then I wished to read & study it before writing; & then came such a succession of visitors [...] that I have had to [...] put off all letters to a quieter time [...] here is a quiet morning, & I use its strength to thank you. 'I find noble & beautiful thoughts & lines in the Seraphim, & shall ever be glad that I have seen it. But I own to you that I turn with a stronger desire & pleasure to the minor poems, some of which really transport me [...] It is because some of the minor poems are riper, more complete & self-contained, & therefore simpler in expression [...] that I prefer them.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Alfred Tennyson : poetry

Harriet Martineau to Elizabeth Barrett, 11 July 1844: 'I read Tennyson with deep & high delight, yet with the mournful feeling that his operation & immortality must be restricted by the want of simplicity wh. is the curse of our poets now-a- days. None can live who do not speak out clear & substantial, well-rounded thoughts in the most lucid & direct expression. Scarcely one does this, -- & for want of it I do fear none will live.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Elizabeth Barrett : Poems

Harriet Martineau to Elizabeth Barrett, 16 September 1844: 'You have been in my mind, & your vols -- or one at a time, while the other was out, -- open before me daily, & many times in a day [...] I saw at once -- in cutting the leaves -- that you had made an immense advance on the former volume [goes on to note various shorter pieces] [...] Lady Geraldine is glorious. I was [italics]swept[end italics] through it [continues with further, detailed criticism of whole collection].'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charlotte Bronte : Jane Eyre

'she said to H M, 'What did you really think of "Jane Eyre"?' H M. I thought it a first rate book, whereupon the little spirite went red all over with pleasure.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

Charlotte Bronte : Villette

'She [Charlotte Bronte] has had an uncomfortable kind of coolness with Miss Martineau, on account of some [italics] very [end italics] disagreeable remarks Miss M. made on Villette, and this has been preying on Miss Bronte's mind as she says everything does prey on it, in the solitude in which she lives'.

Century: 1850-1899     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Book

  

 : The Athenaeum

Harriet Martineau to Elizabeth Barrett, 12 April 1845: 'I have been detained from writing to you by reading the Athenaeum of today.'

Century: 1800-1849     Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau      Print: Serial / periodical

 

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