Disability History Month: Harriet Martineau

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

Helen Barrell 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.

Watch Twenty-first century reflections on Harriet Martineau's 'Letter to the Deaf'

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. She has co-written numerous novels and was shortlisted for the Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2020.

UK Disability History Month on Flickr

A selection of images from the Cadbury Research Library collections relating to disability.

Disability History Resource Guide

CRL Disability History Resource Guide.