Miss Marjoribanks (ePub)

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (born Margaret Oliphant Wilson; 4 April 1828 20 June 1897 was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works encompass "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural".The only daughter and youngest surviving child of Margaret Oliphant (c. 1789 17 September 1854) and Francis W. Wilson (c. 1788 1858), a clerk.[3][4] She was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, East Lothian, and spent her childhood at Lasswade, Glasgow and Liverpool. A street, Oliphant Gardens in Wallyford is named after her. As a girl, she constantly experimented with writing. In 1849 she had her first novel published: Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland. This dealt with the Scottish Free Church movement, with which her parents had sympathised, and which had met with some success. It was followed by Caleb Field in 1851, the year in which she met the publisher William Blackwood in Edinburgh and was invited to contribute to Blackwood's Magazine. The connection would last for her lifetime, during which she contributed well over 100 articles, including a critique of the character of Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, at Birkenhead, and settled at Harrington Square, now in Camden, London. Her husband was an artist working mainly in stained glass. Three of their six children died in infancy.[5] Her husband developed tuberculosis and for the sake of his health they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then to Rome, where he died. On his death Oliphant was left almost entirely without resources, so returned to England and took up the burden of supporting her three remaining children by her literary activity.Memorial to Mrs Oliphant in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, unveiled by J. M. Barrie.[6]She had now become a popular writer and worked with notable industry to sustain her position. Unfortunately, her