June 12, 1802

Harriet Martineau (June 12, 1802 to June 27, 1876) was a writer who not only wrote fiction but wrote articles popularizing economic issues, among other topics. She looked around her and sought to understand what was going on. This is a rarer gift than most imagine. She translated Auguste Comte in two volumes (1853): The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (freely translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau).

Harriet Martineau recovered from a presumed state of lifelong invalidism after being treated according to the principles of mesmerism, and she attributed her unexpected cure to that approach in Letters on Mesmerism, (1845).

Though hardly original in discussing the need for women's education, there is a charming glimpse of her approach to books in her tale The Park and the Paddock (1834) which highlights this. The description is so vivid, it is hard to believe there is no biographical basis, to passages such as the following. The context for our quote is that a family house was abandoned for many years due to the painful memories it held. Now however the children have returned, with an intent to restore "Fellbrow," (the name of the house), to a livable state. The story involves a sister and her brothers.

...
Fanny thought this the most curious-looking old house she had ever seen, and, in spite of the desolation of its present aspect, she could not help enjoying the romantic prospect which began to open upon her of the kind of life she might lead here. These lattice windows,—so many and so small,—were made to be gently opened, in greeting to the rising moon. That carved wooden seat beside the door should be restored for the sake of the wandering merchant who might wish to open his pack before the eyes of the lady of the house. Those broad eaves were made for the swallows to build under.—When she entered the hall, what a sight was there!

..... Never were such cobwebs seen; and it was difficult to imagine what the spiders could be that wove them. They hung like flimsy curtains from the ceiling to the floor, and, as the newly-admitted air waved them in the yellow sunshine which burst in at the door (the windows being wholly obscured by dust) they exhibited a texture of such beauty as it indeed required some resolution to destroy...

"Do but look!" cried Wallace, when he had made his way first into the library. "Grass grown to seed on the mantel-piece! Where the deuce did the seed and the soil come from..."

As one and another entered the room, new wonders became apparent. Fanny was surprised to see the shelves full of books. She looked close to see what they were, and was startled by meeting a pair of bright eyes where a space was left between the volumes.

"It is—yes, it is a stuffed owl," said she..."But what an odd place to hide it in!"
...[Another sibling] touched the creature with the end of his switch; in answer to which salutation it ruffled its speckled plumage, pecked angrily, and then burst away in the direction of a window which was now perceived to be broken. James decreed that this room should be appropriated to Fanny, and that she should never more be known by any other name than Minerva. Seated here, with her owl and her books, she could never say a foolish thing again.

The young lady was not long in doing something which, in most young ladies, would be called foolish. She kneeled on the stained carpet to draw out a volume or two of the row of mouldy folios next the floor. She was fortunate in finding another curiosity.

"Look, look, ..... Here is a skeleton of something. What is it, .... A rabbit? It looks like a rabbit; but there can be no rabbits in this place. That is right; take away the next volume, and the next." Wallace was doing this, under pretence of wanting more light; for he was vexed at not being able to pronounce in a moment what animal this was the skeleton of.

"How curious! how very pretty!" continued Fanny; "spun all over with cobwebs, and fastened to the wall with cobwebs! But what animal can it be? Something that crouches."

"Ah, ha!" cried Wallace; "now I see. It is a cat. Here is the skeleton of a rat a little way before it. Plainly a rat, you see, which could get no farther between the books and the wall: this great Josephus stopped it."

"And-it dared not go back for fear of the cat; and the cat could not quite reach it. But what prevented the cat's going back? Oh, it had forced its way in too far; and the more it crouched, the broader its back would be. How it must have longed to get at the rat! If the rat had had any generosity, it would have gone back and given itself up. It was not jammed, but only barred in behind and before; and when it was certain not to escape, it might as well have been eaten as starved."

"Perhaps it hoped to be released," observed James.

"I am sure that cat did, if, as I believe, it is the same that I used to take care of and torment," said Richard, "I plagued the poor thing terribly, I have no doubt; but she never mewed but I answered her. How she must have wondered what had become of me! How piteously she must have cried for me, while she was starving to death here! One touch of mine to those books would have given her her prey and her liberty. Bring her out, Wallace, and the rat too; I shall have them taken care of."

"I think James had better make a sermon about them," Fanny observed; "something about malice, or greediness, and what comes of them."

Other books which Harriet Martineau wrote include:

Society in America (1837) 

How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838)
Household Education (1848),

Letters on the Laws of Man's Nature and Development,(1851) elaborated her Comtean atheism. This was a very brave position to take. She did not rule out a deity as an original mover, but said this must be unknowable. I like her later critique of Darwin's Evolution of the Species (as mentioned in her Wikipedia article):

I rather regret that C.D. went out of his way two or three times to speak of "The Creator" in the popular sense of the First Cause.... His subject is the "Origin of Species" ...; not the origin of Organisation;... it seems a needless mischief to have opened the latter speculation at all...

After her death her autobiography was published. I will not quote pages 64-68 of this book,
(Harriet Martineau's Autobiography: volume 1, 1877) but they form the basis of my suggesting that Martineau may have invented complaining about maternal defects in one's upbringing.