SOURCE: "The Woman and Her Art: An Assessment," in Mrs. Oliphant: 'A Fiction to Herself; A Literary Life, Clarendon Press, 1995, pp. 289-307.

In the essay below, Jay, while presenting the history of Oliphant's literary reputation, outlines and comments on her various writing skills.

I have so far discussed the particularities of Mrs Oliphant's life and work, rather in the manner she herself suggested when sketching the outlines of one of her own female characters:

Mrs Everard also was a widow. This fact acts upon the character like other great facts in life. It makes many and important modifications in the aspect of affairs. Life à deux (I don't know any English phrase which quite expresses this) is scarcely more different from the primitive and original single life than is the life which, after having been à deux, becomes single, without the possibility of going back to the original standing ground...