Margaret Oliphant

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Standard Name: Oliphant, Margaret
Birth Name: Margaret Oliphant Wilson
Married Name: Margaret Oliphant Oliphant
Pseudonym: Mrs Margaret Maitland
Pseudonym: M. O. W. O.
Used Form: M. O. W. 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).
Head-and-shoulders chalk drawing of a youthful-looking Margaret Oliphant by Frederick Sandys, 1881. She is wearing a brocaded dress and a plain lace cap on her grey hair. National Portrait Gallery.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Reception Mrs Alexander
In 1890 George Bainton called her fiction spirited and dramatic, written with animation, force, and vivid painting of character.
Bainton, George, editor. The Art of Authorship. J. Clarke.
223
Notwithstanding her prolific output and popularity as a novelist, MA 's work has passed into...
Textual Features Margery Allingham
This novel introduced the series detective Albert Campion, whose gentlemanly manner became MA 's hallmark. In this novel he remains on the sidelines of the story as a privileged and apparently brainless young man who...
Literary responses Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Margaret Oliphant , writing in Blackwood's, harshly criticized Barbara Leigh Smith 's Brief Summary . . . of the Laws Concerning Women.
Oliphant, Margaret. “The Laws Concerning Women”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
79
, W. Blackwood, pp. 379-87.
79: 379-87
Literary responses Caroline Bowles
The Gentleman's Magazine's obituary for Bowles recalled that Chapters on Churchyardscontributed materially to establish her literary reputation and also showed powers of narrative fitting her for a popular and profitable branch of composition...
Textual Production Mary Elizabeth Braddon
MEB , as the author of Lady Audley's Secret, re-issued in three volumes her penny-dreadful contribution Rupert Godwin—to the extreme disapproval of Margaret Oliphant , expressed in Blackwood's.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Novels”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
102
, W. Blackwood, pp. 257-80.
261
Cox, Michael, editor. The Oxford Chronology of English Literature. Oxford University Press.
Wolff, Robert Lee. Sensational Victorian. Garland.
122
Intertextuality and Influence Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Lady Audley's Secret was immensely successful. According to Margaret Oliphant , Braddon here invented the fair-haired demon of modern fiction. Wicked women used to be brunettes long ago, now they are the daintiest, softest, prettiest...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Margaret Oliphant , however, disparaged Aurora Floyd in Novels, her Blackwood's attack of September 1867 on the sensation novel, a school of which she took MEB to be the leader. Recognising that the ignorant...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
His article, Sensation Novelists: Miss Braddon, which covered seven novels she had published since 1862, made a famous personal attack in asserting that her work evidenced familiarity with a very low type of female...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Informal and critical responses to The Doctor's Wife during its serialisation caused MEB to revise the conclusion. She admitted to Bulwer-Lytton in a letter dated 7 September 1864 that I am so apt to be...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
They were in time to reap the full force of Margaret Oliphant 's disapproval in her anti-sensation-novel article in Blackwood's. She found it deeply shocking that leading literary journals were praising Rupert Godwin...
Literary responses Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Margaret Oliphant 's critique of the sensation novel in 1867 relied heavily on attacking MEB 's reputation. The best she would say was that some of Braddon's works deserved some of their success. Braddon's sole...
Literary responses Rhoda Broughton
This novel had marked success, selling three thousand copies in the year of its publication.
Wood, Marilyn. Rhoda Broughton: Profile of a Novelist. Paul Watkins.
25
It was also widely reviewed. In her 1867 attack on the sensation novel, Margaret Oliphant acknowledged that Cometh Up...
Friends, Associates Jane Welsh Carlyle
Margaret Oliphant 's visits to the Carlyles in London led to her close friendship with Jane Welsh Carlyle .
There is some uncertainty about this date. In her autobiography Oliphant fancies
Trela, Dale J. “Jane Welsh Carlyle and Margaret Oliphant: An Unsung Friendship”. The Carlyle Annual, Vol.
11
, pp. 31-40.
32
that she first...
Reception Jane Welsh Carlyle
In response to Froude 's critique of theCarlyles ' marriage in Reminiscences, Margaret Oliphant published a glowing account of her friendship with the couple in Macmillan's Magazine.
Carlyle, Jane Welsh. “Editorial Materials”. Jane Welsh Carlyle: A New Selection of Her Letters, edited by Trudy Bliss, Victor Gollancz, p. various pages.
345
Trela, Dale J. “Margaret Oliphant’s ‘bravest words yet spoken’ on Thomas and Jane Welsh Carlyle”. Carlyle Studies Annual, Vol.
18
, pp. 153-66.
163
death Jane Welsh Carlyle
She had planned to host a tea-party whose guests were to include Geraldine Jewsbury , John Ruskin , the J. A. Froude and his second wife , and Margaret Oliphant . Ruskin was not told...

Timeline

April 1817: The first issue of Blackwood's Edinburgh...

Writing climate item

April 1817

The first issue of Blackwood's EdinburghMagazine appeared; founder William Blackwood intended to offer Tory competition to the liberal Edinburgh Review.

April 1879: James Murray—editor since 1 March of what...

Writing climate item

April 1879

James Murray —editor since 1 March of what was to become the Oxford English Dictionary—issued an Appeal for readers to supply illustrative quotations.

November 1882: The first issue of the monthly Longman's...

Writing climate item

November 1882

The first issue of the monthlyLongman's Magazine was published.

1897: With her publication of Grains of Sense,...

Women writers item

1897

With her publication of Grains of Sense, philosopher Victoria, Lady Welby , shifted from theology towards a more academic and analytic study of meaning.

Texts

Oliphant, Margaret. A Beleaguered City. Macmillan, 1879.
Oliphant, Margaret. A Child’s History of Scotland. T. Fisher Unwin, 1895.
Oliphant, Margaret. A Country Gentleman and His Family. Macmillan, 1886.
Oliphant, Margaret. A Little Pilgrim in the Unseen. Macmillan, 1882.
Oliphant, Margaret. Annals of a Publishing House: William Blackwood and His Sons, Their Magazine and Friends. Blackwood, 1897.
Oliphant, Margaret. Caleb Field: A Tale of the Puritans. Colburn, 1851.
Oliphant, Margaret. Cervantes. Blackwood, 1877.
Oliphant, Margaret. Dante. Blackwood, 1877.
Oliphant, Margaret. For Love and Life. Hurst and Blackett, 1874.
Oliphant, Margaret. Hester: A Story of Contemporary Life. Macmillan, 1883.
Oliphant, Margaret. Historical Characters of the Reign of Queen Anne. Century Company, 1894.
Oliphant, Margaret. Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II. Blackwood, 1869.
Oliphant, Margaret. Innocent: A Tale of Modern Life. S. Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, 1873.
Leavis, Q. D., and Margaret Oliphant. “Introduction”. Miss Marjoribanks, Zodiac, 1969, pp. 1-24.
Leavis, Q. D., and Margaret Oliphant. “Introduction”. Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. Margaret Oliphant, edited by Annie Louisa Walker and Annie Louisa Walker, Leicester University Press, 1974, pp. 9-34.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Introduction”. The Library Window. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen, edited by Annmarie Drury, Broadview, 2019.
Oliphant, Margaret. Jeanne d’Arc; Her Life and Death. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896.
Oliphant, Margaret. Katie Stewart. Harper, 1852.
Oliphant, Margaret. Kirsteen: A Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago. Macmillan, 1890.
Oliphant, Margaret. Lady Car; The Sequel of a Life. Longmans, Green, 1889.
Oliphant, Margaret. Lilliesleaf. Hurst and Blackett, 1855.
Oliphant, Margaret. Magdalen Hepburn: A Story of the Scottish Reformation. Hurst and Blackett, 1854.
Oliphant, Margaret. Memoir of Count de Montalembert: A Chapter of Recent French History. Blackwood, 1872.
Oliphant, Margaret. Memoir of the Life of Laurence Oliphant and of Alice Oliphant, His Wife. Blackwood, 1891.
Oliphant, Margaret. Merkland: A Story of Scottish Life. Colburn, 1851.