ABSTRACT

In 1829, Harriet Martineau marked the beginning of her literary career by recording a series of private resolutions in her journal. Martineau thus proposed that travelers employ moral sympathy and systematic observation as a means of understanding and judging the institutional practices of a given country according to her own definition of social progress. Though in 'Literary Lionism' Martineau seems to propose a genderless model of authorship, she does not completely discount gender as an important consideration in addressing the role of the author in contemporary society. By integrating the conventions of domestic fiction with those of sociological analysis, Martineau encourages readers to understand and to question the social conditions that narrowly define women's social and economic roles. Certainly Martineau's contributions to debate over the Woman Question in the 1850s and '60s demonstrate how her liberal individualism could be converted into more militant forms of social protest.