Married life


Margaret Oliphant, always a realist, portrayed married life in all its conditions of happiness and unhappiness. Perhaps the only truly uncomplicated marriages are in The Last of the Mortimers and Carità, where the happy marriages soon give way in the story to absence or death.

Marriages having complications, but founded on love or affection, include those in Lucy Crofton, Agnes, Madonna Mary, At His Gates, Sir Tom, and The Railway Man and His Children. "Love, when it is real, is sturdy and long-lived, and can bear a great deal of disenchantment." (Agnes, 1865.)

Novels and stories depicting marriages which fail include:  The Ladies Lindores, Madam, A Country Gentleman, Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond, The Marriage of Elinor, and A Story of a Wedding Tour.


The Days of My Life
Novel1857
Lucy Crofton
Novel1859
The Last of the Mortimers, a Story in Two Voices
Novel1861
Mrs Clifford's Marriage
Novel1863
Heart and Cross
Novel1863
Agnes
Novel1865
Madonna Mary
Novel1866
At His Gates
Novel1872
The Scientific Gentleman
Short Fiction1872
The Curate in Charge
 Novel1875
An Odd Couple
Novel1875
Carità
 Novel1876
Mrs Arthur
Novel1877
The Ladies Lindores
Novel1882
Sir Tom
 Novel1883
Madam
Novel1884
A Country Gentleman and His Family
Novel1885
A House Divided Against Itself
 Novel1885
Queen Eleanor and Fair Rosamond
Short Fiction1886
Lady Car, the Sequel of a Life
Novel1889
The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow
Novel1889
The Railway Man and His Children
Novel1890
The Marriage of Elinor
Novel1891
A Divided Pair
Short Fiction1892
Sir Robert's Fortune, the Story of a Scotch Moor
Novel1893
A Story of a Wedding Tour
Short Fiction1894
Two Strangers
Novel1895

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