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
Health Mary Howitt
Within the first three years of her marriage, MH was pregnant four times; only the fourth time did the pregnancy produce a living child. After the birth she was dangerously ill for some time.
Dunicliff, Joy. Mary Howitt: Another Lost Victorian Writer. Excalibur Press of London, 1992.
95
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Maria Theresa Longworth
She was not the only one to find inspiration for writing in her court experience. In addition to widespread newspaper coverage and several reports of the trials themselves, other creative responses continued to appear. J. R. O'Flanagan
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Helme
The Critical reviewed this novel two months after publication. It goes unmentioned by Virgil B. Heltzel in Fair Rosamond. A Study of the Development of a Literary Theme, 1947. Those preceding Helme in treating...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence Elizabeth Rigby
Although she grew increasingly frail, ER continued writing throughout her last years. In January 1889 (her eightieth year) she published in the Quarterly Review another anonymous piece on Italy, Venice: Her Institutions and Private...
Literary responses Geraldine Jewsbury
In Blackwood's in May 1855, Margaret Oliphant declared that we have seen few books so perfectly unsatisfactory as Constance Herbert.
qtd. in
Howe, Susanne. Geraldine Jewsbury: Her Life and Errors. George Allen and Unwin, 1935.
121
She criticized GJ for arranging her book around one woman's insanity, since the...
Literary responses Elizabeth Gaskell
Most reviews of North and South were positive, athough some criticized EG for what they saw as inaccuracies in her portrayal of northern industrial life. Chorley in the Athenæum called this one of the best...
Literary responses Geraldine Jewsbury
Despite GJ 's reputation among her contemporaries as a major influence on Victorian literature, her contributions as author and critic have faded into obscurity. Late in the period, Margaret Oliphant passed her over in The...
Literary responses Ellen Wood
Within a few years EW 's popularity had decidedly waned. Margaret Oliphant in The Victorian Age of English Literature found nothing to say about Wood beyond that fact that her works sold by the fifty...
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, Apr. 1856, 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...
Literary responses Catherine Gore
CG said that Bentley paid her three hundred pounds for Cecil, but then made her refund sixty on the grounds that the novel was not saleable (in which he was wrong).
Carson-Batchelor, Rhonda Lea. Margaret Oliphant: Gender, Identity, and Value in the Victorian Periodical Press. University of Alberta, 1998.
208
According to...
Literary responses Julia Stretton
Charlotte Yonge , writing in Women Novelists of Queen Victoria's Reign, published in 1897 by Margaret Oliphant and others, grouped JS with Lady Georgiana Fullerton and Anne Manning as similar in the purity and...
Literary responses Mary Augusta Ward
MAW 's friend Benjamin Jowett praised David Grieve as the best novel since George Eliot .Walter Pater also approved, but critics were not enthusiastic.
qtd. in
Colby, Vineta. The Singular Anomaly: Women Novelists of the Nineteenth Century. New York University Press, 1970.
150
Sales were good, but there were some hostile reviews...

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Oliphant, Margaret. Merkland: A Story of Scottish Life. Colburn, 1851, 3 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Miss Austen and Miss Mitford”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
107
, W. Blackwood, 1870, pp. 290-13.
Oliphant, Margaret. Miss Marjoribanks. W. Blackwood, 1866, 3 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. Miss Marjoribanks. Garland, 1976.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Mrs. Craik”. Macmillan’s Magazine, Vol.
57
, No. November, pp. 81-5.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Novels”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
94
, pp. 168-83.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Novels”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
102
, W. Blackwood, pp. 257-80.
Oliphant, Margaret. Old Mr. Tredgold: A Story of Two Sisters. Longmans, Green, 1895.
Oliphant, Margaret. Oliphant: The Collected Writings of Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897). Adam Matthew, 1995, 4 parts (20 microfilm reels each) plus a guide.
Oliphant, Margaret. Oliphant: The Correspondence and Literary Manuscripts of Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897). Adam Matthew, 1997, 21 microfilm reels.
Oliphant, Margaret. Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, of Sunnyside. Colburn, 1849, 3 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. Phoebe, Junior: A Last Chronicle of Carlingford. Hurst and Blackett, 1876, 3 vols.
Macpherson, Gerardine. “Postscript”. Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson, edited by Margaret Oliphant, Longmans, Green, 1878.
Oliphant, Margaret. “Religious Memoirs”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol.
83
, No. June, W. Blackwood, pp. 703-18.
Oliphant, Margaret. Salem Chapel. W. Blackwood, 1863, 2 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. Selected Stories of the Supernatural. Editor Gray, Margaret K., Scottish Academic Press, 1985.
Oliphant, Margaret. Sheridan. Macmillan, 1883.
Oliphant, Margaret. Sir Tom. Macmillan, 1884.
Oliphant, Margaret. Squire Arden. Hurst and Blackett, 1891, 3 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. “The Anti-Marriage League”. Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, No. 159, pp. 135-49.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Athelings; or, The Three Gifts. W. Blackwood, 1857, 3 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Autobiography and Letters of Mrs. M. O. W. Oliphant. Editor Walker, Annie Louisa, Blackwood, 1899.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Autobiography of Margaret Oliphant: the Complete Text. Editor Jay, Elisabeth, Oxford University Press, 1990.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Curate in Charge. Macmillan, 1876, 2 vols.
Oliphant, Margaret. The Days of My Life. An Autobiography. Hurst and Blackett, 1857, 3 vols.