It was a Lover and His Lass

This fiction by Mrs. Oliphant is the story of a young man, hoping to put an end to the strong prejudice against himself by deciding that the right thing to do would be to marry a widow some years older than him. Set in 19th century Scotland, the book very efficiently and vividly presents the social life and customs of that time.

Margaret Oliphant Wilson (1828 – 1897) was a Scottish novelist and historical writer who usually wrote as Mrs. Oliphant. Her fictional works cover "domestic realism, the historical novel, and tales of the supernatural." She wrote about domestic life with compassion, insight, and wit. She is best known for her Scottish novels like Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland (1849), Merkland (1851), and Kirsteen (1890). She also published Annals of a Publishing House: William Blackwood and his Sons (1897), a work of great significance to literary historians.