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The Literary Breadwinner: Margaret Oliphant
Paperback
Biographies GeneralLiterary Figures
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Publisher: Michael Webster
Published: Jan 4 2026
Pages: 158
Weight: 0.42
Height: 0.37 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
For fifty years, Margaret Oliphant (1828-1897) was one of Victorian England's most prolific and respected writers-a constant presence in Blackwood's Magazine and the author of masterpieces of social realism like the Carlingford Chronicles. Yet, her immense literary output was not born of leisure, but of relentless, agonizing necessity.
This comprehensive biography dismantles the myth of the mere professional to reveal the true magnitude of Oliphant's dual life. She was a literary giant whose pen was the only defense against financial ruin and the sole source of stability after a series of devastating losses that claimed her husband and all her children.
From the sharp social satire of her best novels to the profound grief explored in her supernatural tales, and the brutal honesty of her posthumous Autobiography, this book charts the heroic story of a woman who transformed relentless domestic duty into enduring art. It is the story of Oliphant's quiet triumph: a profound intellectual and master of realism whose work is finally being understood as one of the most vital and resonant legacies of the Victorian age. Approx.158 pages, 27200 word count
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