Excuse my dust: Margaret Oliphant
Margaret Oliphant – a woman of many talents (1828 – 1897)
"The patron saint of all harassed women writers with demanding families"?
A Superwoman -Immense output!
- around 100 novels
- around 50 short stories
- 26 works of non-fiction (wide range: Edinburgh’s Royal Mile; Scottish Kings and Queens, Rome, Venice, Jerusalem, Francis of Assisi)
- 300 articles and reviews (many themes: literature, theology, science, history, travels, biographical sketches)
- Very popular – read by the Queen, Gladstone, Disraeli (1860: annual pension from Disraeli)
Her life in a nutshell
- Humble background, born in Wallyford, Midlothian; moved to Glasgow, then Liverpool; father – bank clerk, 5 siblings; ancestors – Kellie Castle, Fife
- First novel published when she was 21 years old, encouraged by her mother
- Married her cousin, a glass painter who died when M.O. was 31, leaving her in debt and 3 children to look after
- Peripatetic life – Scotland (Elie), England (Eton, London), France, Italy (Capri, Rome), Switzerland
- Published mostly in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (“Maga”) for 50 years
- Buried in Eton Cemetery
- Plaque in St. Giles Cathedral, Royal Mile