A Beleaguered City: and Other Tales of the Seen and the Unseen

by Mrs. Oliphant

Best known today for her Chronicles of Carlingford series of novels, Margaret Oliphant also wrote some of the best supernatural stories in the English language. In addition to the title work, this volume contains the stories "Open Door," "Old Lady Mary," "The Land of Darkness," and "The
Library Window."

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Classics, Fiction, Gothic, Victorian, 19th Century

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1880

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

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Beleaguered City and Other Stories is a collection of supernatural short stories by Victorian author Margaret Oliphant. Mrs. Oliphant is a writer I have been curious about since her books are very hard to come by these days but luckily I found this from university library. I found these stories a mixed bag of stories; all of them were good but most of them didn't really leave any impact on me. The last one, The Library Window, was the strongest to my taste. It followed a girl who saw a man through a library window where everyone else saw nothing. I also loved a story of an old woman who hides her will and after she dies, she finds out that she has made her dear goddaughter to fall into poverty. She comes to haunt the house until they find the will where the woman has left everything to her goddaughter. I would love to read a longer book by Mrs. Oliphant in the future because I really feel that I can have a grasp of her writing only when I read something longer by her. Overall, I find this a gloomy and atmospheric book but don't think the stories will stay in my mind for a long time.

[Joan Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fine collection of Margaret Oliphant's supernatural tales, including one which has rarely been reprinted, "Earthbound".

[liv ;* · Rating 2 out of 5]

...

[Sierra Rosemarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This narrator proves why I generally despise 19th century century epistolary novels. While this isn't quite epistolary it's close enough and also it's kind of frustrating to watch this guy continually reject everyone else's viewpoint... My discussion group (I read this for a class) also generally didn't like this one lol

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Title story was a set text. Made for interesting class discussion, although I didn't love it. Might go back to some of the shorter tales.

[Alexandra]

Lowkey did not finish but shhhh I read most of it (for class).

[mabey · Rating 3 out of 5]

loved old lady mary, the library window, the open door, but HATED the rest. had to force myself to finish this

[megs · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5

[France-Andrée · Rating 3 out of 5]

For now, I have only read the title story. As I will read the rest I might put individuals stars for each story, if I do not find them alone on this site.

There's different things I liked about The Beleaguered City; for one, the main idea of spirits taking over a city was quite interesting also how the story integrates the eyewitness account of many persons, I just thought one important piece of the puzzle was missing. I don't know how we could have gotten the point of view of the ghosts... maybe by the Maire's father leaving it on the desk he moved in the office? That would have been a satisfying way to get a complete view of the events

The ending, is quite sad shows us we don't really change that with all our good intentions, we are complacent and stagnation will always seduce us, especially the last scene, I found that visit quite touching.

[Fred · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dated, boring, slow reading book. If there's someone you don't care for at all, give them this book as a gift.