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).
Reviews, however, though mixed, were not entirely unfavourable. Though many attacked the novel because of the audacity of the topics it tackled—Margaret Oliphant
's The Anti-Marriage League was a notable negative review—several that appeared...
Literary responses
George Eliot
Cross
, concerned to protect and dignify her, chose the more sententious passages and excluded the spontaneous, trivial, and humorous remarks
Eliot, George. “Preface”. The George Eliot Letters, edited by Gordon S. Haight, Yale University Press, 1954, p. 1: ix - lxxvii.
xiv
from her personal writings, and presented an icon of Victorian moral earnestness; many...
Literary responses
Laura Riding
Scholar Michael Sadleir
gave a lunch party to celebrate the publication, and was impressed by LR
's ability to make her ancient characters real.
Friedmann, Elizabeth. A Mannered Grace. Persea Books, 2005.
295
He was agreeably surprised to learn that one of Riding's...
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, 1990.
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...
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...
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...
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.
She attempted unsuccessfully to get better terms from her publisher,...
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...
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
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, 1890.
223
Notwithstanding her prolific output and popularity as a novelist, MA
's work has passed into...
Reception
Ouida
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
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, 1996, 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...
