Harriet Martineau on one of her early publications: 'A most excellent young servant of ours [...] went out to Madeira with my brother and his family [...] Her history was a rather remarkable, and a very interesting one; and I wrote it in the form of four of Houlston's penny tracts. He threw together, and made a little book of them; and the heroine, who would never have heard of them as tracts, was speedily put in possession of her Memoirs in the form of the little book called "My Servant Rachel." An aunt of mine, calling on her one day, found her standing in the middle of the floor, and her husband reading the book over her shoulder.'