Margaret Oliphant

Biography

Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897) was a remarkably prolific Scottish novelist, biographer, and literary critic who published nearly 100 novels alongside histories, biographies, and reviews. Born in Wallyford, East Lothian, she became the primary breadwinner for her extended family after her husband’s early death. Her Chronicles of Carlingford series is considered her masterwork — a vivid panorama of English provincial life rivaling Trollope and Gaskell. Oliphant also wrote acclaimed supernatural fiction and was a major contributor to Blackwood’s Magazine for over 40 years. Long undervalued, her work has been rediscovered by scholars as essential Victorian fiction.