Harkness, Margaret

Harkness, Margaret 

(pseudonym, John Law). Dates of birth and death unknown. English 19th-century writer.

Harkness was the daughter of a pastor. In the 1880’s she joined the socialist movement for a short time. She was the author of the novella A City Girl (1887; Russian translation, 1888), which was about a seamstress who was seduced by a false friend of the workers. In a letter to Harkness written in early April 1888, Engels highly praised the veracity of the story but criticized Harkness’ inability to see “the rebellious resistance of the working class to its oppressive environment.”

WORKS

Gorodskaia devushka. Moscow, 1960.
Kapitan Armii spaseniia. St. Petersburg, 1891. (Under the pseudonym John Law.)

REFERENCES

Marx, K., and F. Engels. Ob iskusstve, vol. 1. Moscow, 1967. Pages 6-8.
Istoriia angliiskoi literatury, vol. 3. Moscow, 1958.

I. M. KATARSKII