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 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...
Reception
Dinah Mulock Craik
The book was immediately successful in England and the United States.
Kaplan, Cora, and Dinah Mulock Craik. “Introduction”. Olive; and, The Half-Caste, Oxford University Press, p. ix - xxv.
xi
Sally Mitchell
remarks that it produced a huge expansion in the audience for fiction: The book helped to overcome the resistance to fiction...
Within a few years of her first novel's publication, Ouida
had attained some celebrity as a writer, but not all the attention she received was positive. While her sales were strong, she was attacked for...
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
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...
Publishing
Dinah Mulock Craik
Her novels were rapidly reprinted in inexpensive editions in Britain and in the United States, indicating that she was gaining a substantial audience.
Mitchell, Sally. Dinah Mulock Craik. Twayne.
36-7
She attempted unsuccessfully to get better terms from her publisher,...
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
Publishing
Harriet Martineau
Chapman used her own memorials (based, she claimed, on full access to HM
's private and public papers, personal letters, and her own and others' first-hand knowledge) to flesh out the account in the manuscript...
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...
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...
Occupation
Anna Maria Hall
AMH
provided help and support to many young writers, including Dinah Craik
and Margaret Oliphant
.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Occupation
Dante Alighieri
Dante's known poetry begins with La vita nuova (The New Life in English), a work in both verse and prose about his famous love for the married Beatrice, which was probably finished by 1293...
Literary responses
Sarah Grand
Margaret Oliphant
, reviewing the novel for Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1889, described it as the expression of a great many thoughts of the moment, and of a desire which is stronger than it ever...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Oliphant, Margaret. The Marriage of Elinor. Macmillan, 1892.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Perpetual Curate. W. Blackwood, 1864.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Primrose Path: A Chapter in the Annals of the Kingdom of Fife. Hurst and Blackett, 1878.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Rector; and, The Doctor’s Family. W. Blackwood, 1863.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Victorian Age of English Literature. Dodd, Mead, 1892.
Oliphant, Margaret, and Francis Romano Oliphant. The Victorian Age of English Literature. Percival and Company, 1892.
Oliphant, Margaret et al. Women Novelists of Queen Victoria’s Reign. Hurst and Blackett, 1897.
Oliphant, Margaret. Zaidee: A Romance. Blackwood, 1856.
