Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy as Theoretical and Methodological Textual Labs

Abstract

The essay focuses on Harriet Martineau’s (1802-1877) Illustrations of Political Economy (1832-1834) as a theoretical and methodological textual laboratory. The tales allow Martineau to experiment and to determine the efficacy of her theoretical and methodological concerns articulated in works prior and contemporary to the Illustrations, launching, at the same time, issues she will apply and treat systematically in works published immediately after. They reveal a dialogic space in a continuous osmotic discoursive relationship with works written before and belonging to the same period of time, namely Female Writers on Practical Divinity (1822), On Female Education (1823), The Rioters (1827), The Turn-out (1829a), the Essays on the Art of Thinking (1829b), The Achievements of the Genius of Scott (1833), and with works written immediately after, specifically Society in America (1837), and How to Observe: Morals and Manners (1838)