Mrs Oliphant Oliphant: 80 books

This early novel has many story lines. Central character Anne Ross is still young at age 23, but her maturity and reserve lead some to think she is already a confirmed spinster. Anne is determined to clear up a mystery about a murder, and thereby to clear the name of her brother Norman who vanished...

Excerpt: "He was a man approaching sixty, but in perfect health, and with no painful physical reminders that he had already accomplished the greater part of life’s journey. He was a successful man, who had attained at a comparatively early age the heights of his profession, and gained a name for...

The effect produced upon the general mind by the appearance of Charlotte Brontë in literature, and afterwards by the record of her life when that was over, is one which it is nowadays somewhat difficult to understand. Had the age been deficient in the art of fiction, or had it followed any long level...

Excerpt: "Mr and Mrs Robert Drummond lived in a pretty house in the Kensington district; a house, the very external aspect of which informed the passer-by who they were, or at least what the husband was. The house was embowered in its little garden; and in spring, with its lilacs and laburnums, looked...

A love story and a romantic coming of age.  Very well worth the read.

Excerpt: "The Bamptons were expecting a visitor that very afternoon: which made it all the more indiscreet that young Fitzroy should stay so long practising those duets with May. It was a summer afternoon, warm and bright, and the drawing-room was one of those pretty rooms which are as English...

This early novel tells the story of Hester Southcote, a girl who has been raised by a bitter father to require "justice" of others, rather than sympathy or pity or even love. Her father is squire of Cottiswoode in Cambridgeshire; but their way of life is overturned when an unknown, but rightful,...

15-year-old Mary Peveril and her widowed clergyman father seem to be everything to each other - until he rather suddenly decides to marry a young woman in her twenties. Mary is all at once pushed into the shade, and jealously watches the other Mary take her place in her father's heart. Even Mary's...

Excerpt: "Young Dr Rider lived in the new quarter of Carlingford: had he aimed at a reputation in society, he could not possibly have done a more foolish thing; but such was not his leading motive. The young man, being but young, aimed at a practice. He was not particular in the mean time as...

When John Erskine was still a child he had inherited the house and estate of Dalrulzian in Scotland; but he had moved to England at age 13 when his mother remarried. Now twenty-five, he has come home at last - though everything is quite a bit smaller than he remembered it. He thinks fondly of a girl...

The Reverend Mr Buchanan holds an important position in the university town of St Rule's, but his means are small. As he and his wife struggle to do the required entertaining, and to make many necessary expenditures for his family, he turns to his rich old friend Mr Anderson, who lends him three hundred...

Excerpt: "There stands in one of the northern counties of Scotland, in the midst of a wild and wooded landscape, with the background of a fine range of hills, and in the vicinity of a noble trout-stream, a great palace, uninhabited and unfinished. It is of the French-Scottish style of architecture,...