The Open Door, and The Portrait: Stories of the Seen and the Unseen was published in 1881. Both stories will captivate the reader with their mysterious occurrences. In The Open Door a sense of suspense intensifies as the horrifying environment unfolds and events heighten the imagination of the reader. An excerpt reads, "It was close to us, the vacant door-way in it going out straight into the blackness outside. The light showed the bit of wall, the ivy glistening upon it in clouds of dark green, the bramble-branches waving, and below, the open door -a door that led to nothing. It was from this the voice came which died out just as the light flashed upon this strange scene. There was a moment's silence, and then it broke forth again. The sound was so near, so penetrating, so pitiful, that, in the nervous start I gave, the light fell out of my hand. As I groped for it in the dark my hand was clutched by Bagley, who, I think, must have dropped upon his knees; but I was too much perturbed myself to think much of this. He clutched at me in the confusion of his terror." Margaret Oliphant was a 19th century Scottish novelist, biographer and historian. She is best known for her depiction of small town life. After the death of her husband she began writing over 100 books as a means of supporting her children and those of her brother.
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.
