Everything goes more smoothly when you have a little help from your friends. Charlotte Brontë is known world-wide as a writer of genius, of course, as have her sisters Emily and Anne. Those of use who study her life as well as her work know that she was also remarkable for her kindness, as in the time when she helped a man with no shoes find employment. Today we mark the 175th anniversary of a day she helped a fellow writer: Harriet Martineau.
Charlotte Brontë’s friendship with Harriet Martineau is one of the most intriguing in her life; Charlotte was the daughter of a clergyman, whilst Harriet was one of the country’s most famous and outspoken atheists. It was a friendship that ended in acrimony after Harriet gave an overly critical review of Charlotte’s novel Villette, but, as we shall see, it was she who helped Harriet Martineau with one of her own novels.
Charlotte Brontë was a great fan of Harriet Martineau’s debut novel Deerbrook, published in 1839, but that was followed by over a decade of essays and non-fiction. On this day in 1851, Charlotte wrote to her publisher George Smith:
‘My dear sir, I enclose a portion of a letter lately received from Miss Martineau. The passage marked with red ink is the one to which I would direct your attention; with reference to this – will you favour me with a suggestion of what it would be advisable to say. Believe me, Sincerely yours, C. Brontë.’
What was in this letter? For that information, we turn to Martineau’s autobiography, in which she writes:
‘Ever since the Deerbrook days, my friends had urged me to write more novels. When Currer Bell was staying with me [Charlotte visited Harriet in December 1850] she had spoken earnestly to me about it, and, as it appeared to us both, wholly in vain. While at Cromer, however, I read Pendennis with such intense enjoyment, and it seemed so much the richer from its contrast with The Ogilvies, and some other metaphysical, sentimental novels that had fallen in my way, that the notion of trying my hand once more at a novel seized upon me; and I wrote to Charlotte Brontë to consult her as to the possibility of doing it secretly, and getting it out anonymously and quite unsuspected – as a curious experiment. She wrote joyously about it, and at once engaged her publisher’s interest in the scheme. She showed the most earnest friendliness throughout. She sent me a packet of envelopes directed by herself to her publisher, and she allowed his letters to me to come through her hands. When I reached home on the 1st of October, I was somewhat scared at what I had undertaken.’
Smith, in his memoir, recalled how proofs of the novel were sent to Charlotte, and that edits came back in Charlotte’s handwriting. What became of the novel? It was never published, as Harriet decided instead to publish Letters On The Laws Of Man’s Nature And Development, a controversial work of philosophy. Even so, it was another indication of just how far Charlotte Brontë would go to help a friend – conversely, she was also someone you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of!
I hope you can join me next Sunday for another new Brontë blog post.