Margaret Oliphant

-
As the breadwinner for her constantly extending family, MO was astonishingly productive. She published (sometimes by name, sometimes anonymously, often with no name but with allusion to her previous works) ninety-eight novels, and three times that many articles for Blackwood's and other magazines. She was equally prolific in short stories and in works of information: biography, socio-historical studies of cities, art criticism, historical sketches, literary histories, and a characteristic, fragmented autobiography, selective but nonetheless revealing. She also did translation and editing. She consistently foregrounds issues involved in Victorian expectations of womanhood: the relationships of daughter, sister, wife, and mother (especially the last).
  • BirthName: Margaret Oliphant Wilson
  • Married: Oliphant
    She was professionally known as Mrs Oliphant, a name she first used in the year she was widowed.
    Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press, 1995.
    242
  • Pseudonyms: Mrs Margaret Maitland; M.O.W.O.
    This was the form of her initials which she herself preferred to use, emphasising her possession of the name Oliphant both by christening and by marriage.

Milestones

4 April 1828

Margaret Wilson (later MO ) was born in Wallyford, Midlothian.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press, 1995.
11

September 1861-January 1862

Blackwood's printed the short story and novella which in 1863 became the anonymous first volumes in MO 's Chronicles of Carlingford as The Rector; and, The Doctor's Family.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press, 1995.
341

February 1865-May 1866

Blackwood's continued MO 's Chronicles of Carlingford with perhaps her best-known novel, Miss Marjoribanks.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press, 1995.
341

25 June 1897

Just before midnight, MO died of colon cancer at Wimbledon near London.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press, 1995.
24, 339

Biography

Birth

4 April 1828

Margaret Wilson (later MO ) was born in Wallyford, Midlothian.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press, 1995.
11