Harriet Martineau

Florence Fenwick Miller offers a warm yet clear-eyed portrait of one of Victorian Britain’s most remarkable thinkers. Harriet Martineau rose from a childhood marked by ill health and deafness to become a widely read authority on economics, politics, and social reform, translating difficult ideas for ordinary readers and reporting fearlessly on slavery during her travels in America. Miller follows that career alongside Martineau’s private battles: her illnesses, her shifting religious convictions, and her fierce independence in an age that allowed women very little of it. Written for the Eminent Women Series in 1884, the book doubles as an argument that Martineau earned a lasting place among the century’s serious minds. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available here.