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Margaret Oliphant a nineteenth century author that was as prolific as she was versatile. She is well-known for her works portraying Scottish and English life and character. During her career she wrote over one hundred books of fiction and over 39 non-fiction works.
Margaret Oliphant was born on April 4, 1828 in Wallyford, East Lothian, Scotland and was the daughter of a Scottish businessman. She grew up in Glasgow and Liverpool, which gave her the background for portraying life in Scotland and England. In 1849 she published her first novel, “Margaret Maitland”, which met with great success.
She married her cousin Frank Wilson Oliphant, but was left a widow with a young family to support in 1859 when Frank died of tuberculosis. Since her work was well receive, she relied on her writing to support her family. Her writing included journalism and serialization in “Blackwood’s Magazine”, writing novels, and writing biographies. Her labors made it possible for her to educate her two sons at Eton and support her nephew Frank.
Though most of her books have Scottish themes, Margaret only lived in Scotland for short periods of time in her adulthood. Most of her time was spent living in London or Europe. Among her works depicting Scottish life are “Katie Stewart”, “The Laird of Norlan”, “The Chronicles of Carlingford” (which was in nine volumes), “The Ladies Lindores”, and “Mrs. Blencarrow’s Troubles”.
Her works on history and biography include “The Literary History of England”, “The Makers of Florence”, “Makers of Venice”, “Jerusalem, The Holy City”, and “St. Francis of Assisi”. She also wrote two volumes of “Historical Sketches of the Reign of George II”. These volumes consist of short biographies that were historical, political, literary, and fashionable. It was her belief that portraying the lives of a group of leading individuals in the various walks of life was one of the easiest ways to study history.
Mrs. Oliphant was not only a prolific writer, but extremely versatile, more, perhaps, than any other female novelist. From pure fiction she could turn to psychological subjects and from these to historical themes and then to sketches of travel.
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