Oliphant, Laurence (1829–1888)

English travel writer and mystic. His many books include Journey to Khatmandu (1852), Minnesota and the Far West (1855), Patriots and Filibusters (1860), and the witty and ironic picture of contemporary society Piccadilly: a Fragment of a Contemporary Biography (1870). Scientific Religion (1888) embodies the mystical views which he adopted later in life.

Oliphant was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He studied law and became a barrister, but spent most of his early life in desultory study and travels through the USA, China, and Japan. He experienced both the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, and in 1870 he was correspondent for The Times in the Franco-Prussian War. In 1878 he proposed a plan to found a Jewish state in Palestine, and in 1882 settled with his wife in Haifa, Palestine.