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...

John Brownlow is a highly respected attorney; and he is the executor for Mrs. Thomson's will, which left £50,000 to her daughter Phoebe. But he is also the beneficiary of that will, if Phoebe is not found within 25 years. As the years pass and Phoebe cannot be found, he begins to think of the money (now greatly increased) as his own. He buys a lovely country estate and raises his children Jack and Sara to associate with the neighbouring gentry. This...

Lucy Trevor, now Lady Randolph, and her husband Sir Tom are very happy together - made even more so by the birth of their little boy. When Lucy's younger brother Jock comes for a long visit, he reminds her of their father's requirements that she give away half her fortune - an idea that is not appreciated by Sir Tom: "A man may have the most liberal principles about women, and yet feel a most natural indignation when his own wife shows signs of desiring...

Hester (1883) is a dramatic story of female power and family tensions within Victorian society. Using her own money, Catherine Vernon manages to save the family bank from collapse after her cousin John absconds with some of its money. As the matriarch of Redborough, Catherine is used to commanding authority, but this is challenged with the arrival of John's strong and capable teenage daughter, Hester. Ignorant of her father's conduct, Hester takes...

Kate Courtney, fifteen, is an heiress with a house in the country - and a rather inflated idea of what her position entails. But she has no one who cares anything about her. She believes she has found happiness when she goes to live with her aunt Mrs. Anderson and her cousin Ombra (whose name means Shadow) in a cottage on the Isle of Wight. But Ombra does not feel the same fondness - she had been the center of attention in her little world before...

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, but more French than Scotch - a little Louvre planted in the midst of a great park and fine woods, by which, could a traveller pass, as in the days of Mr. G.P.R....

Old Mr Trevanion, the squire of Highcourt, is a combative man who enjoys tyrannizing over his wife Grace. Ill with heart disease, as his health deteriorates his behaviour does too; and even in front of others he makes vague threats of exposing some shameful secret from Grace's past. Grace has four children by Mr Trevanion, and an older stepdaughter Rosalind with whom she is very close. Soon people become aware that Grace is leaving the house each...

17-year-old Susan and her brother 22-year-old Horace live a lonely life on Lanmoth Moor in Cumbria. Their mother died long ago, and their father Mr. Scarsdale is a bitter, controlling recluse who shows them no love. Susan retains her sweet nature, but Horace bears bitterness and hatred towards everyone - though he hides it to some extent in order to manipulate others. Mr. Scarsdale is bitter about a will, but the details are not disclosed until later...

Captain Bellendean of Bellendean has returned to Scotland to begin life on his estate. He has brought several people with him including the older Colonel Hayward. Helping with the festivities is Joyce, the village schoolteacher - an outgoing, popular girl of high intelligence. She is engaged to Andrew Halliday, the pedantic schoolmaster from the next village. Colonel Hayward is shocked when he sees Joyce - who looks like his first wife, disappeared...

The three stories in the Little Pilgrim series all take place in the Afterlife. The series is based on the Christian religion, but has a universal appeal in its view of heaven and the lower worlds of the Afterlife. The first story was inspired by the death of Margaret Oliphant's close friend and neighbour Eleanor Clifford, known to Mrs. Oliphant's children as Aunt Nelly. In several stories the little Pilgrim (Nelly) sees or encounters people she knew...