Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Margaret Oliphant
-
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).
This story takes place in a small town on the Scottish Borders at the time of the Napoleonic wars: the kind of setting that became a favourite with ASS
. In content, also, it is...
Textual Production
Anna Swanwick
She dedicated it to James Martineau
in honour of their friendship of sixty years.
Swanwick, Anna. Poets the Interpreters of their Age. George Bell.
prelims
Her preface says: To the learned I have nothing to offer, but hopes to appeal to students and readers. She...
Friends, Associates
Sarah Tytler
ST
's career as a writer introduced her to many leading literary figures (especially those of Scots origin) whom she entertainingly describes in Three Generations.
Clearly delighted with the opportunity to mix in literary circles, ST
recorded her personal observations of these authors in Men and Women Met by the Way, the final 100-page-long section of her family autobiography...
politics
Queen Victoria
Perhaps the author whose writings and politics addressed the Queen the most frequently was Margaret Oliphant
, whose biographical works often championed female monarchs, especially Victoria. A critic, correspondent, even friend of QV
, Oliphant...
Friends, Associates
Annie Louisa Walker
ALW
joined the extended household of the widowed, eminent, hard-working author Margaret Oliphant
, her distant cousin.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press.
269
Williams, Merryn. Margaret Oliphant: A Critical Biography. St Martin’s Press.
89-90
Textual Production
Annie Louisa Walker
ALW
, as Mrs Harry Coghill finished arrang[ing] and edit[ing]The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant, which appeared in print by the following month.
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, pp. 9-34.
[35], xi
Author summary
Annie Louisa Walker
Writing in the late nineteenth century at first in Canada and later in England, ALW
produced six novels, two books of poetry, a volume of plays for children and several short stories. She was...
Family and Intimate relationships
Annie Louisa Walker
ALW
was orphaned and sisterless by the time she was in her mid-twenties. Little else known of her family, except that Margaret Oliphant
was her second cousin.
Jay, Elisabeth. Mrs Oliphant: "A Fiction to Herself": A Literary Life. Clarendon Press.
19
Cook, Ramsay, editor. Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. http://www.biographi.ca/index2.html.
Employer
Annie Louisa Walker
ALW
became Oliphant
's housekeeper, confidante, and amanuensis. In February 1877 Oliphant passed on to her the continuation of the arduous translation from French of Montalembert
's Les Moines d'Occident, suggesting to Blackwood's
a...
Intertextuality and Influence
Annie Louisa Walker
In her Autobiography, Margaret Oliphant
recalls that when ALW
wrote to her in 1865 to introduce herself, she mentioned her literary aspirations, taking at that time the shape of poetry, against which I remember...
Publishing
Annie Louisa Walker
After Margaret Oliphant
's death in 1897 ALW
wrote a short biography of her cousin, which was published in the Fortnightly Review. She wrote another magazine biography the same year: of the painter George Mason
Literary responses
Mary Augusta Ward
Reviews were positive. Novelist Margaret Woods
felt that the archaic world it depicted was the root of Marcella's charm.
Watters, Tamie, and Mary Augusta Ward. “Introduction”. Marcella, Virago, p. vii - xvi.
xvi
Margaret Oliphant
criticised the author in Blackwood's for asking readers to surrender all our...
Colby, Vineta. The Singular Anomaly: Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century. New York University Press.
150
Sales were good, but there were some hostile reviews...
Textual Production
Marina Warner
MW
published Joan of Arc
: The Image of Female Heroism, her study of the legendary Maid of Orleans who became a fearless soldier, a martyr, and eventually a saint.
