The Wizard's Son (Volume1), Margaret Oliphant

This is a trilogy. There are three parts to the trilogy. The author is Margaret Oliphant. I'm not sure where I heard her name before. I found appeal in the title of the trilogy. Also, most of the writers that I read are male, and I need to read more works by female authors. She was a prolific writer and there is much material to enjoy available freely online. The Wizard's Son (volume 1) can be found freely on Gutenberg.org.

This is a superficial remark: her paragraphs are quite lengthy; sometimes they span pages. However, her style is very easy to read and pleasant. In the early chapters I find that she is a master of the craft belonging to the uppermost tier of fiction writers.

I read her biography on Wikipedia.org. She apparently was the sole provider for her three surviving children after her husband's death. I can't help but wonder if a part of her is in the main character's mother. She works hard to support her son who does not realize what she does for him and he takes her for granted never really knowing the position that she is in. He is considered to be a lazy do-nothing kind of young man. The cause is argued that her nagging of him is one cause, while the other her effort to protect him from knowing the perilous nature of their financial situation.

Things, however, take a drastic turn. I am unsure as to why they take such a turn. One idea is that Captain Underwood may be the cause. He is thought to maybe have a solid network of people that he knows of both high and low class. He asked Walter Methven what he would do if he suddenly came into wealth. Later on that day, a distant relative of extensive wealth and royal blood but no heir, makes his appearance and makes him his heir.

The way people treat Walter between the day before and the day after is classic.

He stumbled over the housemaid's pail, of course, but did not call forth any frown upon that functionary's freckled forehead as he would have done yesterday. On the contrary, she took away the pail, and begged his pardon with awe—being of course entirely blameless. He paused for a moment on the steps as he faced the raw morning air going out, and lo! the early baker, who was having a word with cook at the area over the rolls, turned towards him with a reverential look, and pulled off his cap. These were the first visible signs of Walter's greatness...

This story is not a fast action novel. It's quite slow and deliberate. That said, it's skillfully written and well described. It was written in the Victorian era, I believe, where that is the style. The characters are well defined as are the gorgeously described settings.

The joy of wealth, for Walter Methven, comes with a heavy price. He takes on a new name: Lord Erradeen. With it comes a heavy price. When he is taken to Scotland where his inheritance is, he is confronted by a ruined castle. This does not mean that he is poor. He is in fact quite wealthy, even though the ruined castle only has a few rooms in any condition to live within. This in itself would be enough to make him comfortable as he begins to network within the social web that surrounds him.

Unfortunately, the castle is also haunted with a ghost. Most likely it is the ghost of an ancient ancestor who is referred to as a warlock. The warlock attempts to gain control over Walter. A part of that control involves making him evict a small village of people who had a bad year and are therefore being evicted from their homes.

Walter, having been recently poor, however, cannot stand to let the eviction take place and stops it at the last moment. This is where part 1 of 3 ends.

I really enjoyed this first book and look forward to reading the second.