Harriet Martineau

(1802 - 1876)

Having become known in the early 1830s for her Illustrations of Political Economy and in the late 1830s for her travel-inspired work of sociology, Society in America, Harriet Martineau was diagnosed with a uterine tumor in 1839. Bedridden at her brother-in-law’s house, she began to explore mesmerism, created by Franz Anton Mesmer in the 1770s, and became an advocate of its physical and mental boons. “The principle of life itself,” she wrote, “appears to be fortified by mesmeric influence.” A prolific novelist, historian, and essayist, Martineau published over a dozen books and contributed some 1,600 leading articles for the Daily News between 1852 and 1866.