Faraday to Harriet Martineau   11 April 1850

Royal Institution | 11 April 1850

My dear Madam

I am sorry to find that in your great work you have been led at page 451, vol II1 into an error respecting me by an authority which you might well think sufficient but which is inaccurate2. I cannot understand how the error arose at first but it appeared in the papers and I found it necessary in a letter to the Editor of the Literary Gazette (4 March 1837, page 1473) to correct it. The error probably passed from the papers into the Annual Register4 & from that into the far more important position it holds in your History[.]

I send you a letter from a friend of mine5 with whom you probably are acquainted that you may see from his testimony what really passed; it agrees with that of all those I have spoken to who were then present. Perhaps you would not mind taking the trouble of returning me his letter[.]

I hope you will forgive me for writing to you about this matter[.] I feel it a great honor to be borne in your remembrance but I would not willingly be there in an erroneous point of view[.]

I have the honor to be | My dear Madam | with every respect | Your faithful humble Servant | M. Faraday

Miss Martineau

Martineau (1849-50), 2: 451.
See note 3, letter 2277.
Faraday to Jerdan, 2 March 1837, letter 977, volume 2.
Ann.Reg., 1837, 79: 21.
Letter 2277 from Edward Cowper.

Bibliography

MARTINEAU, Harriet (1849-50): The History of England during the Thirty Years’ Peace: 1816-1846, 2 volumes, London.

Please cite as “Faraday2279,” in Ɛpsilon: The Michael Faraday Collection accessed on 28 March 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/faraday/letters/Faraday2279