Margaret Oliphant, Salem Chapel

Anne Reus (Technische Universität Dresden)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Jessica Gossling (Goldsmiths College, University of London)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1863

Places

United Kingdom (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Margaret Oliphant’s

Salem Chapel

(1863) narrates events set in motion by the arrival of a new Dissenting minister in the provincial town of Carlingford. It is the second novel in her

Chronicles of Carlingford

series which in its heyday was compared to Anthony Trollope’s

Barchester Towers

. Like the first novel in the series,

The Rector

(1862), and those that followed it,

The Perpetual Curate

(1864) and

Phoebe Junior

(1876),

Salem Chapel

examines how religious institutions and their representatives interact with society and respond to its challenges. It is also heavily influenced by sensation fiction’s sudden rise to popularity and borrows from its arsenal of tropes by incorporating bigamy, murder, and kidnapping into an otherwise comic realist narrative. Oliphant herself considered

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2103 words

Citation: Reus, Anne. "Salem Chapel". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 September 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38933, accessed 05 May 2024.]

Save this article