While she enjoyed the distinction of being Queen Victoria’s favourite novelist, Margaret Oliphant struggled to maintain a writing pace that would generate the income needed to support dependent relatives. The necessity of speed and the whims of her audience kept her work from maintaining the quality needed for an enduring literary reputation, and by the end of the 19th century she was all but forgotten. [1]
Margaret Oliphant Wilson was a Scottish novelist, biographer, short story writer, translator, and critic. She is remembered for her novels that depict English and Scottish provincial life.
Born on 4 April 1828 at Wallyford, Scotland, where her father was a bank clerk, Margaret was the only daughter and youngest surviving child of Francis W. Wilson and his wife, Margaret. She had no formal education but read widely and was encouraged by her mother to experiment with writing. Her first novel, Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland, was published in 1849 when Margaret was just 21.
Three years later, in 1852, Margaret married her cousin Frank Oliphant, an artist working mainly in stained glass, and the couple settled in London. Margaret’s life was overshadowed by domestic tragedy. Five children were born but only two survived into adulthood. The family moved to Rome in 1859 because of Frank’s tuberculosis, where first their daughter, and then Frank died during the year. Pregnant, heavily in debt, and alone with children in a foreign country, Margaret returned to England and took up writing to support herself.
It was because of financial responsibility for both her own family and for her brother’s children that she worked hard, becoming one of the most prolific of all the great Victorian novelists. Writing for over 50 years, Mrs Oliphant produced more than 100 novels, numerous travel books, histories, and biographies, over 50 short stories, and at least 400 periodical essays. Her most enduring work is Chronicles of Carlingford, a series of five novels that chronicle life in a small English town. Her other works include Caleb Field (1851) and The Ways of Life (1897).
After the last of her children died in 1894, Margaret Oliphant had little further interest in life and her health steadily declined. She died at Wimbledon on 20 June 1897, aged 69.