Short answers, pulled from the story.
Harriet Martineau (the 12th of June 1802 - the 27th of June 1876) was an English social theorist and writer regarded by some scholars as the first female sociologist. She translated Auguste Comte's foundational sociological work into English, wrote Illustrations of Political Economy which outsold Charles Dickens, and was among the first writers to study marriage, children, religious life, and race relations as sociological subjects.
Illustrations of Political Economy was a fictional series intended to help the general public understand the ideas of Adam Smith and other economists. The first volume was published in February 1832 in an edition of only 1,500 copies, but it quickly outsold Charles Dickens. By 1834, monthly sales had reached 10,000 copies at a time when sales of 2,000 to 3,000 copies were considered highly successful for fiction.
Martineau was a close friend of Charles Darwin's brother Erasmus, and Charles Darwin called on her in December 1836. Some historians suggest her popularisation of Malthus's theories of population control may have helped persuade Charles to read Malthus, providing breakthrough ideas for his theory of evolution. When On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, Erasmus sent her a copy and she wrote back with enthusiastic praise.
Martineau spent 1834-36 in the United States, where she publicly supported the then-widely-unpopular abolitionist cause. Her book Society in America (1837) and articles including "The Martyr Age of the United States" (1839) introduced English readers to the struggles of American abolitionists. When a statue of Martineau was unveiled in December 1883 at the Old South Meeting House in Boston, the abolitionist Wendell Phillips called her the "greatest American abolitionist".
Published in 1848 after Martineau toured Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, the book argued that as humanity passed through successive world religions the conception of the deity grew increasingly abstract, with philosophic atheism as the ultimate destination. Publisher John Murray rejected it for its "infidel tendency." Scholar Billie Melman described it as the first feminine travelogue proper that was not an account of a pilgrimage.
From 1845 onward, Martineau lived at The Knoll, a house she designed and built in Ambleside in the Lake District, moving in during April 1846. She died of bronchitis there on the 27th of June 1876, aged seventy-four. She was buried alongside her mother in Key Hill Cemetery, Hockley, Birmingham.