A House in Bloomsbury

by Mrs. Oliphant

Margaret Oliphant once again serves up a delicious serving of a family saga, spiced with deceit, derring-do, and suspenseful romance. Not to be missed by Oliphant fans.

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 27, 2015

About the author

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant (née Margaret Oliphant Wilson) was a Scottish novelist and historical writer, who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works encompass "domestic realism, the historical novel and tales of the supernatural".

Margaret Oliphant was born at Wallyford, near Musselburgh, East Lothian, and spent her childhood at Lasswade (near Dalkeith), Glasgow and Liverpool. As a girl, she constantly experimented with writing. In 1849 she had her first novel published: Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland which dealt with the Scottish Free Church movement. It was followed by Caleb Field in 1851, the year in which she met the publisher William Blackwood in Edinburgh and was invited to contribute to the famous Blackwood's Magazine. The connection was to last for her whole lifetime, during which she contributed well over 100 articles, including, a critique of the character of Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining, and some fun moments, but this one didn’t particularly hold my interest

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

My very first read from Margaret Oliphant and I have somewhat mixed feelings. The story was quite sensationalist in its plot with copious secrets involving mothers and children and this certainly kept the pages turning. There are some great characters such as Miss Bethune, a Scottish lady of fortune and Doctor Rowland, a man ahead of his time in his surmises that a person’s mental and emotional state can affect their physical health. The concept of the whole story taking place almost exclusively in one boarding house also works well with lots of coming and goings from one floor to another and put upon servants. Oliphant makes commentary on the position of women at the time and the different expectations society has of them and writes some quite affecting passages about her characters emotions, managing to portray Dora, the teenage daughter of Mr. Mannering very realistically for example.

What lets it down ultimately is the writing itself and even then, it is primarily in the first part of the book. In the opening chapters there is some rather clunky sentences and a lot of repetition of the same idea. It is almost as though these parts were not edited properly as when the novel gets going, this is far less noticeable. This is not one of Oliphant’s most well-known novels and as she wrote over a hundred, I am still likely to pick up something else because it was an easy and mostly enjoyable read.

[Amy Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Victorian novels therefore really enjoy Oliphant because her books typify the Victorian culture. However, while this book was perfectly fine, it wasn't my favorite and wouldn't be one that I would recommend as something anyone had to read. It's a story about two people living in a boarding house, each with their own unknown yet somewhat similar histories. The plot is surprising at some points and overly predictable in others. Nevertheless, it's a sweet story that no lover of Victorian literature will regret reading.

[Kay Robart · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my review here:

https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2023...