Miss Marjoribanks [Import] [Paperback]

Margaret Oliphant (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Virago; New Ed edition (1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0860687708
• ISBN-13: 978-0860687702
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,279,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unacknowledged gem!, January 6, 2003

By 

A. D. MacEwen "His Imperial Majesty, Grand Hi... (Queens, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Miss Marjoribanks (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

This must be one of the funniest books I've ever read--I hadn't laughed out loud like this since Catch-22. The character of Miss Marjoribanks (that's pronounced "Marchbanks") is used by Oliphant both as a vehicle for social satire in the Victorian community and as an instrument to examine female modes of power in the Victorian home. The scene in which Miss Marjoribanks figuratively usurps her father's role as patriarch of the house by appropriating his place at the breakfast table is hilarious. Oliphant's book is wonderfully enjoyable and furtively serious--it may be light in tone, but it reveals a great deal about how a resourceful Victorian woman might seek modes and expressions of power within parameters that are very limiting.

The main character of Miss Marjoribanks is not intended to "grow" or "develop"--part of the pleasure of her characterization and her story is in witnessing how her single-minded mania as social director of her community compells her to overcome the obstacles thrown in her way by the novel's narrative. Why should we arbitrarily expose this book to aesthetic standards created by a handful of canonical novels? Miss Marjoribanks's characterization is as valid as any found in Austen or Trollope (though not necessarily as great as the best of them)--we must keep in mind that there was much more to Victorian fiction than what is revealed in the small quantity of canonized examples still read today. Oliphant was immensely popular in her day, she was Queen Victoria's favorite writer, and there were many contemporary critics who considered her to be one of the best novelists of that period.

In short, Oliphant's Miss Marjoribanks is a comic masterpiece, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to any reader of 19th-century British fiction.

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and fetching, November 1, 2000

By 

Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Miss Marjoribanks (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

If you were to cross Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse with E. F. Benson's Lucia, the result (psychologically as well as chronologically) would be Margaret Oliphant's triumphant queen of Carlingford society, Lucilla Marjoribanks. Determined to show everyone an entertaining time (ostensibly "to be a comfort to dear Papa," even though her father tends to withdraw entirely from her noisy gatherings), the self-centered but always ingenious Lucilla engineers social triumph after social triumph in this very amusing mid-Victorian novel. There were many moments when I laughed out loud, or was genuinely surprised by Lucilla's cleverness in overcoming momentary catastrophes. This is the perfect book for anyone who has loved Austen, Trollope, or Elzabeth Gaskell's WIVES AND DAUGHTERS.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars amusing but mild, November 21, 2001

By 

Brenda Jo Mengeling (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Miss Marjoribanks (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

"Miss Marjoribanks" is set up in a mock epic style following the social conquering of Carlingford by Lucilla Marjoribanks when returns to her hometown after years in school and on the Grand Tour. The omniscent narrator sets the epic tone, and this more than the plot or character development carries the story along. Lucilla's work to bring order to the chaos of Carlingford social life causes her mostly success with a few small failures thrown in, but she doesn't seem to ever grow in awareness as do the heroines of Jane Austen's or Anthony Trollope's novels. This lack of character development and absence of a strong plot made this novel less satisfying than those of Trollope, Austen, Fielding and the like. But the narration is amusing and makes the book readable and moderately enjoyable.