Saunders & Otley. 1837 – Second edition (same year as 1st edition).
Three volumes.
Contemporary three quarter leather bindings with ribbed spines, leather corners and spine title labels, marbled paper boards, marbled edges. Small octavos, 364 + 369 + 365 pages. The three volumes have the name of the original owners written on the Title pages – George and Caroline Aufrere – (18)37.

The book plate pasted on the front pastedown of each volume belonged to Andrew A. Miller.

Harriet Martineau (12 June 1802 – 27 June 1876) was an English social theorist and Whig writer, often cited as the first female sociologist.

Martineau wrote many books and a multitude of essays from a sociological, holistic, religious, domestic, and perhaps most controversially, feminine perspective; she also translated various works from Auguste Comte. She earned enough to be supported entirely by her writing, a rare feat for a woman in the Victorian era. A young Princess Victoria, (later Queen Victoria), enjoyed reading Martineau's publications. The queen invited Martineau to her coronation in 1838—an event which Martineau described, in great and amusing detail, to her many readers. Martineau said of her own approach to writing: "when one studies a society, one must focus on all its aspects, including key political, religious, and social institutions". She believed a thorough societal analysis was necessary to understand women's status under men.

The novelist Margaret Oliphant said "as a born lecturer and politician she [Martineau] was less distinctively affected by her sex than perhaps any other, male or female, of her generation." Martineau introduced feminist sociological perspectives into her writing on otherwise overlooked issues such as marriage, children, domestic and religious life, and race relations.

In the Victorian era, most social institutions and norms were strongly shaped by gender, or the perception of what was "appropriate" for men versus for women. Writing was no exception; non-fiction works about social, economic and political issues was dominated by men, while limited areas, such as romance fiction, and topics dealing with domesticity were considered to be appropriate for women authors. Despite these gendered expectations in the literary world, Martineau strongly expressed her opinions on a variety of topics. In 1832 Martineau moved to London. Among her acquaintances were: Henry Hallam, Harriet Taylor, Alexander Maconochie, Henry Hart Milman, Thomas Malthus, Monckton Milnes, Sydney Smith, John Stuart Mill, George Eliot, Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Charles Lyell, as well as Thomas Carlyle. She met Florence Nightingale and Charlotte Brontë later on in her literary career.

Until 1834 Martineau was occupied with her political economy series as well as a supplemental series of Illustrations of Taxation. About the same time, she published four stories expressing support of the Whig Poor Law reforms. These tales (direct, lucid, written without any appearance of effort, and yet practically effective) display the characteristics of their author's style. Tory paternalists reacted by calling her a Malthusian "who deprecates charity and provision for the poor", while Radicals opposed her to the same degree. Whig high society fêted her.

In May 1834 Charles Darwin, on his expedition to the Galapagos Islands, received a letter from his sisters saying that Martineau was "now a great Lion in London, much patronized by Ld. Brougham who has set her to write stories on the poor Laws" and recommending Poor Laws and Paupers Illustrated in pamphlet-sized parts. They added that their brother Erasmus "knows her & is a very great admirer & every body reads her little books & if you have a dull hour you can, and then throw them overboard, that they may not take up your precious room."

In 1834, after completing the economic series, Harriet Martineau paid a long visit to the United States. During this time, she visited with James Madison, the former president, at his home at Montpelier.[12] She also met numerous abolitionists in Boston and studied the emerging girls' schools established for their education. Her support of abolitionism, then widely unpopular across the U.S., caused controversy, which her publication, soon after her return, of Society in America (1837) and How to Observe Morals and Manners (1838), only added to. The two books are considered significant contributions to the then-emerging field of sociology.

In Society in America, Martineau angrily criticised the state of women's education. She wrote,
"The intellect of women is confined by an unjustifiable restriction of... education... As women have none of the objects in life for which an enlarged education is considered requisite, the education is not given... The choice is to either be 'ill-educated, passive, and subservient, or well-educated, vigorous, and free only upon sufferance."

Her article "The Martyr Age of the United States" (1839), in the Westminster Review, introduced English readers to the struggles of the abolitionists in America several years after Britain had abolished slavery.

In October 1836, soon after returning from the voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin went to London to stay with his brother Erasmus. He found him spending his days "driving out Miss Martineau", who had returned from her trip to the United States. Charles wrote to his sister,
"Our only protection from so admirable a sister-in-law is in her working him too hard." He commented, "She already takes him to task about his idleness— She is going some day to explain to him her notions about marriage— Perfect equality of rights is part of her doctrine. I much doubt whether it will be equality in practice."

The Darwins shared Martineau's Unitarian background and Whig politics, but their father Robert was concerned that, as a potential daughter-in-law, the writer was too extreme in her politics. Charles noted that his father was upset by a piece read in the Westminster Review calling for the radicals to break with the Whigs and give working men the vote "before he knew it was not hers [Martineau's], and wasted a good deal of indignation, and even now can hardly believe it is not hers." In early December 1836 Charles Darwin called on Martineau and may have discussed the social and natural worlds she was writing about in her book Society in America, including the "grandeur and beauty" of the "process of world making" she had seen at Niagara Falls. He remarked in a letter,
She was very agreeable and managed to talk on a most wonderful number of subjects, considering the limited time. I was astonished to find how little ugly she is, but as it appears to me, she is overwhelmed with her own projects, her own thoughts and own abilities. Erasmus palliated all this, by maintaining one ought not to look at her as a woman.

In April 1838 Charles wrote to his older sister Susan that
Erasmus has been with her noon, morning, and night:—if her character was not as secure, as a mountain in the polar regions she certainly would loose it.— Lyell called there the other day & there was a beautiful rose on the table, & she coolly showed it to him & said 'Erasmus Darwin' gave me that.— How fortunate it is, she is so very plain; otherwise I should be frightened: She is a wonderful woman.

As early as 1831, Martineau wrote on the subject "Political Economy" (as the field of economics was then known). Her goal was to popularise and illustrate the principles of laissez faire capitalism, though she made no claim to original theorising.

Martineau's reflections on Society in America, published in 1837, are prime examples of her sociological methods. Her ideas in this field were set out in her 1838 book How to Observe Morals and Manners. She believed that some very general social laws influence the life of any society, including the principle of progress, the emergence of science as the most advanced product of human intellectual endeavour, and the significance of population dynamics and the natural physical environment.

Auguste Comte coined the name sociology and published a rambling exposition under the title of Cours de Philosophie Positive in 1839. Martineau undertook a translation that was published in two volumes in 1853 as The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte (freely translated and condensed by Harriet Martineau). It was a remarkable achievement, and a successful one; Comte recommended her volumes to his students instead of his own. Some writers regard Martineau as the first female sociologist. Her introduction of Comte to the English-speaking world and the elements of sociological perspective in her original writings support her credit as a sociologist.



Martineau ".crossed the Atlantic to find out how Americans had succeeded in incorporating the principles of justice and mercy in their treatment of "the least happy classes of society." The bulk of her findings are presented in Society in America. On the whole, she was favorably impressed by what she saw in the new republic. Society in America is a synthesis and an interpretation of Martineau's impressions organized in topical fashion with the subject matter divided into four major parts: politics, economy, civilization, and religion. Miss Martineau spent six months in the South. Although most of the references to her experiences on this Southern trip are scattered through Society in America, there are several detailed passages. An outspoken opponent of slavery, Martineau devotes much space to this question; in a chapter entitled "Morals of Slavery" she commends the slaveholders for instances of mercy, indulgence, and patience to the Negroes but wholeheartedly condemns the system as being essentially unjust.

Society in America was written following Martineau's two-year tour of the country, during which she acquainted herself with the Abolitionist movement and solidified her opposition to the slave trade. While praising aspects of American society, the work condemns its manifest inequalities, in particular the subjugation of women, and the division of society into servile and imperious. She attacks one of the country's central hypocrasies in allowing the existence of the slave trade while espousing a principle that 'all men are born free and equal'.



".Harriet Martineau landed in New York on September 19, 1834. . Society in America is a synthesis and an interpretation of Martineau's impressions organized in topical fashion with the subject matter divided into four major parts: politics, economy, civilization and religion. . Miss Martineau spent six months in the South. . An outspoken opponent of slavery, Martineau devotes much space to this question." Clark III, 205. Howes M-350.

CONDITION: Volume 1: Good; Volumes 2 and 3: Very Good.
All volumes have moderate shelf and corner wear, owner's labels on front pastedowns and names written on title pages. Clean and intact Contents, and tight bindings.
Some wear and discoloration on spines of Volumes 1 and 2.
The spine of Volume 1 has a triangular missing piece of leather at the bottom and a patch replacing a missing piece of leather at the top. The attachment of the front board is neatly re-inforced.)