Harriet Martineau’s Prosthetic Eye, or Her Telescopic Imagination

Abstract

This article takes up Anna Henchman’s notion of “telescope as prosthesis” to navigate Harriet Martineau’s prosthetically informed telescopy and astronomical impulse within her 1844 Life in the Sick-Room: Essays by an Invalid. Martineau appropriates her telescope as both an ocular and an ambulatory prosthetic device to transform her sickroom into an observatory, orienting her telescope toward bodies in motion and imagining herself among them. Martineau employs her prosthetic eye, or her telescopic imagination, to enhance her observations while still retaining her autonomy as a scientific observer. This article responds to scholars such as Lila Marz Harper, Maria Frawley, and Abigail Mann and Kathleen Béres Rogers, who have extensively explored how Martineau’s hearing disability, illnesses, and use of prostheses contributed to her sociological scientific inquiry. The author expands their work by considering how Martineau’s telescope informs her other scientific interests, namely, astronomy. In addition to Anna Henchman, this study builds on scholarship by Isobel Armstrong, Omar Nasim, and Gillian Daw on the intersections of Victorian optics, astronomy, imagination, and art to examine Martineau’s uniquely domestic and prosthetic application of Herschelian telescopy. As such, this study interrogates the essays in which Martineau’s telescope was most crucial to her philosophies: those within Life in the Sick-Room.