Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's

out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello, I'm Claire Walker Gore.

Thanks for downloading this episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, which is part of a short

series looking at women writers to put back on the bookshelves.

I'm a new generation thinker on a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities

Research Council to turn academic research into radio programmes.

I study Victorian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge,

and today I want to tell you about a 19th century Scottish writer, Margaret Ollifant.

The winter of 1861 was the worst of Margaret Ollifant's life,

recently widowed, almost penniless, with three small children to support,

she found herself fighting back tears in her publisher's office,

as she begged him to accept just one of her stories.

Humiliatingly, he refused.

She trudged home through the freezing Edinburgh streets and tried not to cry

in front of her children. It was all a horribly long way from her first dealings with Blackwoods,

when they'd set the seal on her precocious literary success by inviting her to join their

glittering roster of authors. They'd sent through the proofs of her

latest novel Katie Stewart on her wedding day. It must have seemed a good omen for both her marriage

...