Returning home to tend her widowed father Dr Marjoribanks, Lucilla soon launches herself into Carlingford society, aiming to raise the tone with her select Thursday evening parties. Optimistic, resourceful and blithely unimpeded by self-doubt, Lucilla is a superior being in every way, not least in relation to men. ''A tour de force...full of wit, surprises and intrigue...We can imagine Jane Austen reading MISS MARJORIBANKS with enjoyment and approval in the Elysian Fields'' - Q. D. Leavis. Leavisdeclared Oliphant''s heroine Lucilla to be the missing link in Victorian literature between Jane Austen''s Emma and George Eliot''s Dorothea Brook and ''more entertaining, more impressive and more likeable than either''.