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Prose

Notes Martineau wrote at least three books during her illness, and a historical plaque marks this house.
In 1844 she published both Crofton Boys, the children’s novel, and Life in the Sickroom: Essays by an
Invalid, an autobiographical reflection on invalidism. She wrote Household Education (1848), the
handbook on the ‘proper’ way to raise and educate children. Lastly, she began working on her
autobiography. Completed much later, it included some hundred pages to this period. Notable
visitors included Richard Cobden and Thomas Carlyle and his wife.
Life in the Sickroom is considered to be one of Martineau’s most underrated works. It upset evangelical
readers as they “thought it dangerous in ‘its supposition of self-reliance.’ This series of essays
embraced traditional womanhood. Martineau dedicated it to Elizabeth Barrett, as it was “an
outpouring of feeling to an idealized female alter ego, both professional writer and professional
invalid- and utterly unlike the women in her own family.” Written during a kind of public break
from her mother, this book was Martineau’s proclamation of independence.
At the same time, Martineau turned the traditional patient/doctor relationship on its head by
asserting control over her space even in sickness. The sickroom was her space. Life in the Sickroom
explained how to regain control even in illness. Alarmed that a woman was suggesting such a
position in the power dynamic, critics suggested that, as she was an invalid, her mind must also
be sick and the work was not to be taken seriously. British and Foreign Medical Review dismissed
Martineau’s piece on the same basis as the critics: an ill person cannot write a healthy work. They
thought it was unheard of for a woman to suggest being in a position of control, especially in
sickness. Instead, the Review recommended patients’ follow “unconditional submission” to the
advice of doctors. They disagreed with the idea that Martineau might hold any sort of “authority
to Britain’s invalids.”
Expecting to remain an invalid for the rest of her life, Martineau delighted in the new freedom of
views using her telescope. Across the Tyne was the sandy beach 3 where there are frequent wrecks
– too interesting to an invalid... and above the rocks, a spreading heath, where I watch troops of
boys flying their kites; lovers and friends taking their breezy walks on Sundays...” She expressed
a lyrical view of Tynemouth:
“When I look forth in the morning, the whole land may be sheeted with glistening snow, while the
myrtle-green sea tumbles... there is none of the deadness of winter in the landscape; no leafless
trees, no locking up with ice; and the air comes in through my open upper sash, but sun-warmed.
The robins twitter and hop in my flower-boxes... and at night, what a heaven! What an expanse of
stars above, appearing more steadfast, the more the Northern Lights dart and quiver!”
During her illness, she for a second time declined a pension on the civil list, fearing to compromise
her political independence. After publication of her letter on the subject, some of her friends raised
a small annuity for her soon after.
21.2 Mesmerism and Ambleside

In 1844 Martineau underwent a course of mesmerism, returning to health after a few months.
There was national interest in mesmerism at this time. Also known as ‘animal magnetism’, it can
be defined as a “loosely grouped set of practices in which one person influenced another through
a variety of personal actions, or through the direct influence of one mind on another mind.
Mesmerism was designed to make invisible forces augment the mental powers of the mesmeric
object.”She eventually published an account of her case in sixteen Letters on Mesmerism, which
caused much discussion. Her work led to friction with “the natural prejudices of a surgeon and a
surgeon’s wife” (her brother-in-law and sister).
In 1845 she left Tynemouth for Ambleside in the Lake District, where she built herself the house
called “The Knoll”, where she spent the greater part of her later life. In 1845 she published three
volumes of Forest and Game Law Tales. In 1846 she toured Egypt, Palestine and Syria with some

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