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 …
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Citation: Reus, Anne. "Salem Chapel". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 September 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38933, accessed 26 November 2024.]