Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1886 — Harriet Martineau. [ARTICLE]

Harriet Martineau.

Harriet MaVtineau was born at Norwich, England, June 12, 1802. She was well educated, and, at a very early age, began to exercise her talent for composition. In 1823 she began publishing poems and moral sketches chiefly for the young. By 1828 she had printed ten of these small volumes, and she now prepared a series of tracts on questions relating to the working classes, in whose welfare she took much interest. In 1831 she publiseed “Trations of Palestine,’’which was a series of sketches of the Holy Land during the period of Christ’s ministry. In the same year the British Unitarian Socity having offered three prizes for tracts on different subjects, Miss Martineau competed for, and won them all. She then began the publication of her series of “ Stories on Political Economy,” by which she gained much more fame and money than all her previous works. In 1834-6 Miss Martineau visited America, and on her return recorded her impressions in two volumes. During tho next two years she wrote two novels and several tales for children, but her health, never robust, now became so affected that she wag obliged to give up literary occupation for two years. In 1843 she published a series of sketches called “Life in a Sickroom.” From that time for nearly twenty years she pursued her literary work almost continuously, though much of the time she was in very health. In 1846 she made a tour through the Orient, concerning which she subsequently wrote a book. Probably tho most important work of this indefatigable woman was a "History of England During the Thirty Years’ Peace,” a work which ranks as an authority concerning the period of English history to which it relates. Miss Martineau wrote in all over fifty volumes, besides a great toumber of pamphlets and an innumerable list of newspaper and magazine articles. She was several times offered a pension from the government, but, though she had never, because of her benevolent disposition, saved much from her earnings through literary labor, she always refused on conscientious grounds to accept it. Miss Majtineau died June 27, 1876. —Inter Ocean.