the Life and works of Harriet Martineau

Published in 1957 by Secker and Warburg, Vera Wheatley's The Life and Work of Harriet Martineau remains one of the few substantial modern studies of its subject: Harriet Martineau (1802-1876), sometimes called the first modern sociologist, an abolitionist and proto-feminist whose bestselling Illustrations of Political Economy made her one of the most widely read writers of her age.

Drawing on Martineau's letters and public writing, Wheatley traces her rise from a collapsed family fortune to literary fame, her American travels and pioneering sociological writing, and her decades of public commentary on politics, religion, and social reform.