During the later stage of her writing career, Oliphant became noted as an author of supernatural fiction. She referred to these stories as ‘Tales of the Seen and Unseen’, reflecting her belief in an unseen spiritual world existing side by side with the ‘seen’ world of mortal existence. As with many Victorian ghost stories, the tales are set within an Anglican Christian framework and explore themes of love, loss and grief – often providing religious consolation in their revelation of life after death, or presenting supernatural episodes sentimentally as a result of extraordinary personal tragedy. This approach was common amongst nineteenth-century writers of the ghost story, but also reflects Oliphant’s deep sense of loss at the early death of her own children, all of whom predeceased her.
Probably the best known of Oliphant’s ghost stories is the much-anthologised ‘The Open Door’ (1882) about the ghost of a child that haunts a ruined cottage. This was included in Stories of the Seen and Unseen (1902), which collected four of Oliphant’s most popular ghost stories.
As well as several supernatural novels and self-contained short stories, Oliphant’s Tales of the Seen and Unseen also includes a sequence of stories involving the ‘Little Pilgrim’, which imagines the experiences of a (thinly disguised) friend of Oliphant’s who had recently died, after she awakens in the Afterlife. The imaginary depiction of a soul’s experiences after death is a common theme in Oliphant’s supernatural tales and was the basis for the last story she ever wrote: ‘The Land of Suspense’ (1897), based on the imagined after-death experience of her alcoholic son Cyril.
Oliphant was a hugely prolific writer and many of her stories remain uncollected in book form. Indeed, as recently as 2014, a hitherto unknown story of the seen and unseen (‘New Year’s Day’) was discovered by Alan John. This collection reprints all the stories of the Seen and Unseen known to have been written by Oliphant – but who knows what other hidden gems remain to be uncovered!