Margaret Oliphant

Hester (1883) is a dramatic story of female power and family tensions within Victorian society. Using her own money, Catherine Vernon manages to save the family bank from collapse after her cousin John absconds with some of its money. As the matriarch...

This Victorian masterpiece of comic irony and unsentimental warmth has a force of nature at its core: headstrong Lucilla Marjoribanks. Mrs Oliphant’s unconventional and endearing heroine is ‘a woman with a mission’: she is determined to take charge of...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories. But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion...

An author’s talents may seem obvious and indisputable as they move words and ideas into gathered phrases and stories. But where do these ideas and stories come from? A lonely thought that suddenly gathers form? An inspiration from a Muse? A suggestion...

Margaret Oliphant Wilson was born on 4th April 1828 in East Lothian in Scotland but spent her childhood in Midlothian, Glasgow and Liverpool.She wrote from a young age and in 1849 had her first novel about the Scottish Free Church movement, a cause...