Harriet Martineau, Harriet Martineau's Autobiography

Valerie Sanders (University of Hull)
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Harriet Martineau's Autobiography

is an unusually outspoken example of the genre, particularly for a woman writing in the nineteenth century. It was composed by Martineau in the first three months of 1855 at headlong speed in the belief that she had a fatal heart disease and would hardly live to complete it. In the event, she lived for another twenty-one years, but she added nothing to the manuscript, which had already been printed and stored for posthumous publication. Her American friend and literary executor, Maria Weston Chapman, assembled a third volume consisting of personal memories, journal extracts and additional material covering the last twenty years of Martineau's life. This has remained out of print, widely dismissed as eulogistic and of little critical value, but it has theā€¦

985 words

Citation: Sanders, Valerie. "Harriet Martineau's Autobiography". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 January 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13038, accessed 19 March 2024.]

13038 Harriet Martineau's Autobiography 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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