ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY by Martineau, Harriet - 1833

London: Charles Fox, 1833. Very good. 20-volume collection of Martineau's landmark series of tales popularizing concepts in the growing field of economics for a working-class audience, laying the groundwork for the social reform novels of Dickens and Eliot. From a working-class background herself, Harriet Martineau began publishing as a freelance writer after her father's textile manufacturing business failed. The first volume in ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, published the same year as Parliament's First Reform Bill, dramatized concepts of Adam Smith; after its immediate and unexpected success, Martineau continued with the series to narrate ideas from David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham, and more. By bringing concepts of political economic theory into the sphere of popular readership, Martineau gave reformers a powerful tool to address the social costs of industrialization. Her series balances empathy and logic in addressing how "quality of life was compromised by, rather than enhanced by, the cultural progress and social evolution industrialism promised" (Logan 9). The series made Martineau a celebrity in London, each new issue looked for by an admiring readership that ranged from Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Prime Minister Robert Peel, from Princess Victoria to Florence Nightingale. Martineau's ILLUSTRATIONS fictionalized the economic problems within a popular and accessible framework, marking a turning point in English literature that built upon the socially conscious novels of Maria Edgeworth, William Godwin, and Elizabeth Inchbald and set the stage for the great era of social novels by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, and, in the US, Harriet Beecher Stowe. 25 numbers were published in all; today, they are rarely seen in sets of more than two or three numbers at a time. At 20 volumes, this is the largest single set we have seen on the market. 20 volumes, 5.25'' x 3.5'' each. Vols. I-III second editions; Vols. IV-XX first editions; collated complete. Contemporary half green sheep, marbled paper boards, gilt-stamped spines. Blue speckled edges. 124-172 pages per volume. Contemporary ink ownership inscriptions on the front board of some volumes. Some wear and rubbing to boards, light scattered foxing.