SOURCE: Introduction to The Autobiography of Margaret Oliphant: The Complete Text, edited and introduced by Elisabeth Jay, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. vii-xvii.

In the following introduction to a new edition of Oliphant's Autobiography (based on the original manuscript), Jay suggests that this new work allows modern readers the chance to understand the intense relationship Oliphant felt between the act of writing and the personal and financial needs that inspired it.

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant, whose curious name derived from marrying a cousin on her mother's side of the family, was born on 4 April 1828 in Wallyford, Midlothian, and died in Wimbledon on 25 June 1897. Her first attempt at writing took the form of a novel written in her teens to secure 'some amusement and occupation for myself while striving to overcome depression after a broken engagement and acting as the silent nurse and attendant her mother's serious illness required. The...