Amazon.com description: Product Description: A review from The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register, 1834:

FEW writers have been rewarded with more praise and profit, few loaded with more censure and calumny, than the authoress of "Illustrations of Political Economy." Perhaps both those who so much exalt her efforts, and those who would so deeply abase them, are equally wrong. Their strength, however, is proved by the sensation they have occasioned, which may be truly said to have been universal. While the Quarterly Reviewers have esteemed her publications sufficiently important, both morally and nationally, to call forth their bitterest opprobrium, not unmixed with much that is personal rather than critical, the " Edinburgh" have extolled the genius that originated and produced these works. The "Journal of Education" has temperately admitted their ability, and leniently demonstrated some of the errors, in an article which, but for a bias (obviously external) given to the writer, would have been severe. Some periodicals have lauded, and others have forgotten both their own self-respect, and a due regard to decency in their condemnation of Miss Martineau and her opinions. The newspapers, metropolitan and provincial, have bepraised or bespattered her; she has been deified in prose, and ridiculed in verse—nay, at more than one Radical meeting, her name has been invoked as the only oracle competent to decide the mighty questions there agitated. After all these demonstrations, there can be no doubt that much power must be inherent in works which could awaken so universal an interest, even though that interest should be short-lived; and this is the fact which induces us to make the few observations that follow upon the first of a new series of tales just commenced by the same active and strong mind. The power is granted—the effects indefinite and undetermined.

But the summary of Miss Martineau's qualifications may, perhaps, be thus drawn. A fearless courage; a patient industry in collecting information; an intellect clear and capable in reducing the elements of the knowledge thus acquired to order, and perspicuity in setting it forth; keen observation of character and incident, and an extraordinary assimilation which teaches her to turn even the most trivial circumstances to present account; a large acquaintance with life in its middle and lower stages; enough of book-learning to enable her to inform herself with considerable accuracy upon the subjects she treats, and to illustrate by general views local scenery, national characteristics and individual mannerisms; strong, but not intense sensibility; a talent in combining all these attributes which bears the nearest approach and resemblance to invention and imagination, without actually reaching them; a most philosophical contempt for practice whenever it militates against theory, impeded and darkened, yet precipitated by vehement prejudices of education, society, and habits, and by a disclaim of the commonly-felt delicacies of sex and station; and last, not least, an energy of purpose and of action, fed, stimulated, and pampered by an ambition to serve the cause and enjoy the worship of that portion of the community she designates the people, perfectly indomitable and unwearying. Such we take to be the true portraiture of the mind, which, advantaged by the impulse of the time, has succeeded in moving the whole kingdom through a succession of stories, that, under any other circumstances, would probably have obtained for the writer little more applause or distinction than was awarded, about forty years ago, to the excellent Lady Fenn, for her amiable project of " teaching in sport." Miss Martineau's plan stands intrinsically in the same relation to political economy, that the scheme of this good matron bore to education; but Miss Martineau had the good fortune to find the tide of opinion and enthusiasm at the flood, whilst her wide-spreading family, political and Unitarian connexions....