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Books with author Margaret Wilson Oliphant

  • Harry Muir. A story of Scottish life

    Margaret Oliphant

    language (, June 19, 2018)
    Classic tale of Scotland
  • It was a Lover and his Lass

    Margaret Oliphant

    eBook
    CHAPTER I.There stands in one of the northern counties of Scotland, in the midst of a wild and wooded landscape, with the background of a fine range of hills, and in the vicinity of a noble trout-stream, a great palace, uninhabited and unfinished. It is of the French-Scottish style of architecture, but more French than Scotch—a little Louvre planted in the midst of a great park and fine woods, by which, could a traveller pass, as in the days of Mr. G. P. R. James, on a summer evening when the sun had set, and find himself suddenly face-to-face with such an edifice amid such a solitude, the effect even upon the most hardened British tourist would be something extraordinary. There it stands, white and splendid, raising its turreted roofs, such a house as a prince might live in, which would accommodate dozens of guests, and for which scores of servants would be needful. But all naked, vacant, and silent, the glassless windows like empty sockets without eyes, the rooms all unfinished, grass growing on the broad steps that lead up to the great barricaded door, and weeds flourishing upon the approach.
  • A child's history of Scotland

    Margaret Oliphant

    language (, June 19, 2018)
    I. Malcolm Canmore and Margaret Atheling .... II. The Saxon Dynasty III. The Disputed Succession IV. William Wallace and Robert Bruce .... V. The House of Bruce VI. The Stewards of Scotland VII. James I. VIII. James II. IX. James III. X. James IV. XI. James V. The Reformation Mary Queen of Scots . James VI James I. and VI. after the English Accession Charles I Charles I. — the Covenant The Persecutions .... William and Mary
  • The Sorceress

    Margaret Oliphant

    eBook (Books on Demand, April 12, 2019)
    It was the most exciting event which had ever occurred in the family, and everything was affected by it.Imagine to yourselves such a young family, all in the very heyday of life, parents and children alike. It is true that Mrs. Kingsward was something of an invalid, but nobody believed that her illness was anything very serious, only a reason why she should be taken abroad, to one place after another, to the great enjoyment of the girls, who were never so happy as when they were travelling and gaining, as they said, experience of life. She was not yet forty, while Charlie was twenty-one and Bee nineteen, so that virtually they were all of the same age, so to speak, and enjoyed everything together-mamma by no means put aside into the ranks of the dowagers, but going everywhere and doing everything just like the rest, and as much admired as anyone.To be sure she had not been able to walk about so much this time, and had not danced once, except a single turn with Charlie, which brought on a palpitation, so that she declared with a laugh that her dancing days were over. Her dancing days over! Considering how fond she had always been of dancing, the three young people laughed over this, and did not take the least alarm. Mamma had always been the ringleader in everything, even in the romps with the little ones at home. For you must not think that these three were all of the family by any means.
  • A Little Pilgrim by Margaret Oliphant Wilson, Fiction, Literary, Religious

    Margaret Wilson Oliphant

    Paperback (Aegypan, June 1, 2011)
    She had been talking of dying only the evening before, with a friend, and had described her own sensations after a long illness when she had been at the point of death. "I suppose," she said, "that I was as nearly gone as anyone ever was to come back again. There was no pain in it, only a sense of sinking down, down -- through the bed as if nothing could hold me or give me support enough -- but no pain." And then they had spoken of another friend in the same circumstances, who also had come back from the very verge and who described her sensations as those of one floating upon a summer sea without pain or suffering, in a lovely nook of the Mediterranean, blue as the sky. These soft and soothing images of the passage which all men dread had been talked over with low voices, yet with smiles and a grateful sense that "the warm precincts of the cheerful day" were once more familiar to both. And very cheerfully she went to rest that night, talking of what was to be done on the morrow, and fell asleep sweetly in her little room, with its shaded light and curtained window, and little pictures on the dim walls.
  • The Sorceress

    Margaret Wilson Oliphant

    Paperback (Cole Press, June 2, 2011)
    Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
  • WHO WAS LOST AND IS FOUND by MARGARET OLIPHANT

    Margaret Oliphant

    Paperback (Independently published, Nov. 11, 2017)
    One of the most respected inhabitants of the village, rather of the parish, of Eskholm in Mid-Lothian was Mrs Ogilvy, still often called Mrs James by the elder people who had known her predecessors, who had seen her married, and knew everything about her, her antecedents and belongings. This is a thing very satisfactory in one way, as giving you an assurance that nothing can be suddenly found out about you, no disreputable new member or incident foisted into your family life; while, on the other hand, it has its inconveniences, since it becomes more or less the right of your neighbours to have every new domestic occurrence explained to them in all its bearings. Great peace, however, had for a long time fallen over the house in which Mrs James Ogilvy was spending the end of her quiet days: no new incident had occurred there for years: its daily routine to all appearance went on as cheerfully as could be desired. It was one of the prettiest houses of the neighbourhood. Built on the side of a little hill, as so many houses are in Scotland, it was a tallish two-storeyed house behind, plunging its foundations deep in the soil, with an ample garden lying east and south, full of all the old-fashioned vegetables and most of the old-fashioned flowers of its period. But in front it was the trimmest cottage, low but broad, opening upon a little round platform encircled by a drive, and that, in its turn, by closely clipped holly-hedges, as thick as a wall and as smooth. Andrew, the gardener, thought it more genteel to fill the little flower-border in front with bedding-out plants in the summer,—red geraniums, blue lobelias, and so forth—never the pansies and gillyflowers his mistress loved,—and it was only with great difficulty that he had been prevented from shutting out the view by a clump of rhododendrons in the middle of the grass plot. “The view!” Andrew said in high contempt: but this time his mistress had her way. The view, perhaps, was nothing very wonderful to eyes accustomed to fine scenery. A bit of the road that led to Edinburgh and the world was visible among the trees at the foot of the brae, where the private path of the Hewan between its close holly-hedges sloped upward to the house: and behind stretched the full expanse of country,—the towers of the castle making a break among the clouds of trees on one hand, and some of the roofs of the village and the little stumpy church-steeple showing on the other side. Between these two points, and far on either side, the Esk somehow threaded his way, running by village and castle impartially, but indeed exerting himself very much for the Hewan, forming little cascades and bits of broken water at the foot of the steep brae, throwing up glints of sunshine as it were from the depths, and filling the air always with a murmur of friendly companionship of which the inhabitants were unconscious, but of which had it stopped they would have instantly become aware and felt that all the world had gone wrong. There was a garden-chair placed out here under the window of the drawing-room, where Mrs Ogilvy used to sit during a great part of the summer evenings—those long summer evenings of Scotland, which are so lingering and so sweet. To sit “at the doors” is so natural a thing for the women. They do it everywhere, in all climates and regions. Ladies who were critical said that this was a bad habit, and that there was nothing so becoming for a woman as to sit in her own drawing-room, in her own chair, where she could always be found when she was wanted. But a seat that was just under the drawing-room window, was not that as little different from being inside as could be? I agree, however, with the critics that the sentiment was quite different, and that to go indoors at the right time and have your lamp lighted, and sit down in your comfortable chair, denotes, perhaps, a more contented mind and a spirit reconciled to fate.
  • A Poor Gentleman

    Mrs. Margaret Oliphant

    language (, April 16, 2020)
    One of Oliphant's vast collection of novels.
  • Merkland: Or, Self Sacrifice

    Margaret Oliphant

    language (The Floating Press, May 1, 2015)
    “BUT may not Mrs. Catherine’s visitor belong to another family? The name is not uncommon.”“You will permit me to correct you, Miss Ross. The name is by no means a common one; and there was some very distant connexion, I remember, between the Aytouns and Mrs. Catherine. I have little doubt that this girl is his daughter.”“Mother! mother!” exclaimed the first speaker, a young lady, whose face, naturally grave and composed, bore tokens of unusual agitation. “It is impossible; Mrs. Catherine, considerate and kind as she always is, could never be so cruel.”“I am quite at a loss for your meaning, Anne.”“To bring her here—to our neighborhood,” said Anne Ross, averting her eyes, and disregarding her step-mother’s interruption, “where we must meet her continually, where our name, which must be odious to her, will be ringing in her ears every day. I cannot believe it. Mrs. Catherine could not do anything so barbarous.”Mrs. Ross, of Merkland, threw down her work, and pushed back her chair from the table:“Upon my word, Anne Ross, you turn more absurd every day. What is the meaning of this?—our name odious! I should not like Lewis to hear you say so.”“But Lewis does not know this terrible story,” said Anne.fiction, novel, classic, letter of Lewis, story, life, family
  • The Sorceress

    Margaret Oliphant

    eBook (, June 16, 2016)
    Margaret Oliphant was one of the most prolific writers of the Victorian period. "The Sorceress" is a charming Victorian tale of domestic drama, and ranked among her more critically acclaimed works.
  • Miss Marjoribanks

    Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

    eBook (, Feb. 5, 2018)
    Miss Marjoribanks by Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
  • Merkland : or, Self Sacrifice

    Mrs. Margaret Oliphant

    language (, Sept. 25, 2013)
    The house and small estate of Merkland were situated in one of the northern counties of Scotland, within some three or four miles of a little post-town which bore the dignified name of Portoran. The Oran water swept by the side of its small port, just before it joined its jocund dark-brown waters to the sea, and various coasting vessels carried its name and its traffic out (a little way) into the world. The parish in which Merkland stood, boasted at least its three Lairds’ houses—there was Strathoran, the lordliest of all, with its wide acres extending over three or four adjacent parishes. There was the Tower, with its compact and richly-cultivated lands, the well-ordered property of Mrs. Catherine Douglas; and, lastly, there was Merkland—the home of a race of vigorous Rosses, renowned in former generations for its hosts of sons and daughters, and connected by the spreading of those strong and healthful off-shoots, with half of the families of like degree in Scotland. The children of the last Ross of Merkland had not been vigorous—one by one, in childhood, and in youth, they had dropped into the family grave, and when the infant Anne was born, her worn-out mother died, leaving besides the newborn child, only one son. His mother’s brother long before had made this Norman, his heir. At the same time, in consideration of his independent inheritance, and his changed name, he had been excluded from the succession to his father’s lands. So Mr. Ross of Merkland, in terror lest his estate should have no worthier proprietor than the sickly little girl whose birth had cost her mother’s life, married hastily again. When Lewis and Anne were still only infants, Norman Rutherford left his father’s house to take possession of his own—and then some terrible blight had fallen upon him, spoken of in fearful whispers at the time, but almost wholly forgotten now. A stranger in the district at the time our history begins would only have learned, after much inquiry, that Norman, escaping from his native country with the stain of blood upon his hands, proved a second Jonah to the ship in which he had embarked, and so was lost, and that grief for his crime had brought his father’s grey hairs in sorrow to the grave. But the difference of name, and the entire silence maintained by his family concerning him, had puzzled country gossips, and restrained the voice of rumor, even at the time. Now his remembrance had almost entirely passed away, and in another week Lewis Ross, Esq., of Merkland, would be of age.But the whole dreadful tale in all the darkness of its misery had been poured into Anne’s ears that day. She had known nothing of it before. Now, her stepmother thought, it was full time she should know, because—a reason that made Anne shrink and tremble—Mrs. Ross felt convinced that the girl who was so soon to be a visitor at the Tower, could be no other than the daughter of the murdered man.