21st century reflections on Harriet Martineau's 'Letter to the Deaf'

This second of two talks about Harriet Martineau by Helen Barrell is part of the University of Birmingham’s programme of events for Disability History Month. Helen looks through Harriet Martineau’s “Letter to the Deaf” (1834) and finds some surprising parallels with her own experience of hearing loss nearly 200 years later.

Helen Barrell is a librarian at the University of Birmingham and an alumna of the English Department. She has written two books on 19th century crime and forensic science. Fatal Evidence, the first book-length biography of pioneering forensic scientist Alfred Swaine Taylor, was one of the Guardian’s Best Summer Books 2018. With Catherine Curzon, she has co-written numerous novels; The Ghost Garden was shortlisted for the 2020 Romantic Novel of the Year award. Their first novel co-written as Ellie Curzon, Under a Spitfire Sky, will be published by Orion in 2021. Helen has appeared on BBC1’s Murder, Mystery and My Family, and Radio 4’s Punt PI.

This session is part of the University of Birmingham’s programme of events for Disability History Month, and will be available to view until the end of December 2020.

Watch the presentation