This talk considered the influential life and career of the Victorian journalist and author, Harriet Martineau. Martineau moved to the Lake District in the mid-1840s, and she made her mark on the region. Her ‘Complete Guide’ to the Lakes became a bestseller. Even more than this, though, Martineau’s writings and relationships reveal links between the Lake District and the wider world, including many of the social and political upheavals that shaped her age.