Two Strangers

Margaret Oliphant Wilson OliphantProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 141K words
Chapters: 15

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Two Strangers by Mrs. Oliphant. Author: Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret), 1828-1897. Language: English. Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature. Release Date: Oct 21, 2017

Editor's review

Two Strangers is a novel by the prolific Victorian author Margaret Oliphant, available in the Project Gutenberg ebook library. Oliphant is known for her delicate portrayal of family life, social customs, and character psychology. This book follows her usual method, building its narrative around the human entanglements set off by strangers meeting. The plot advances through dialogue and everyday scenes rather than strong dramatic conflict, suiting readers who like a slow pace and a focus on character relationships. As a public-domain ebook, it also offers students of nineteenth-century English fiction a freely accessible text sample. Read it slowly, noting the narrator's subtle commentary on characters' words and actions and how the strangers' identities are gradually revealed. If you read English originals, it can serve as an entry point to Victorian middle-class subject matter; if you prefer strong plots or fast modern pacing, you may find it flat.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers of English originals who enjoy Victorian British fiction
Literary readers studying Oliphant's work or nineteenth-century domestic themes
Readers who want free public-domain ebooks and are used to slow reading
Readers interested in character relationships and everyday scene descriptions

Not a good fit for

Readers who prefer strong plots, fast pacing, or suspenseful twists
Beginners unused to English originals or the pacing of Victorian narration
Readers who only want short pieces and lack patience for long everyday narratives

Reading tips

Read a chapter or two first to get a feel for the pacing, then decide whether to read straight through.
Keep pen and paper handy to note character relationships and clues to the strangers' identities so you can follow the suspense.
Read alongside summaries of Oliphant's other works to understand the background of her style.
If the English is hard going, read a Chinese synopsis first and then work through the original alongside it.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book an English original? Is it hard to read?

This is a public-domain English ebook from Project Gutenberg, written in nineteenth-century English with period sentence patterns and vocabulary. Readers with some English reading ability can get through it with a dictionary; if you rarely read English originals, try the first few pages first to gauge the difficulty.

Who is Oliphant? What are this book's features?

Margaret Oliphant (1828–1897) was a prolific Victorian author whose works often focus on family life and social customs. This book centers on the human entanglements set off when strangers meet, emphasizing dialogue and everyday scenes, with detailed character psychology and relatively mild dramatic conflict.

Are there any usage notes for the ebook edition?

This is a public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg and can be obtained free. Layout may vary slightly across reading devices, so use reading software that supports font-size adjustment; public-domain texts generally have no copyright restrictions, but it is still good practice to cite the source when quoting.

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About the author

Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant Author · British (Scottish) · 1828–1897

Mrs. Oliphant (Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant, 1828–1897) was a prolific Scottish novelist, historical writer and biographer of the Victorian era. Born in Wallyford, she gained fame in 1849 with Passages in the Life of Mrs. Margaret Maitland. In 1852 she married her cousin Frank Oliphant; widowed in 1859, she supported her children by her pen and published more than a hundred works in her lifetime. The library holds 90 of her works, including the Carlingford Chronicles, Salem Chapel, Miss Marjoribanks, supernatural tales, Hester, Kirsteen and the autobiography The Days of My Life. She is known for her delicate, humorous portrayals of small-town life and for her historical and biographical writing, and stands as a representative professional woman writer of the Victorian period.