Olive Schreiner

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Standard Name: Schreiner, Olive
Birth Name: Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner
Pseudonym: Ralph Iron
OS was a political and social activist as well as a writer. Her biographer Liz Stanley says she was internationally probably the best-known feminist writer and theorist from the 1880s through to the 1930s.
Stanley, Liz. “Encountering the Imperial and Colonial Past through Olive Schreiner’s <span data-tei-ns-tag="tei_title" data-tei-title-lvl=‘m’>Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland</span&gt”;. Women’s Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 2, pp. 197-19.
198
Much of her writing strongly advocates a more democratic, just, free society, using to do so the art of allegory and the parable. Her early novels were followed by a large number of political essays. Later, she published the feminist testament which made her an icon in the women's movement in the early decades of the twentieth century. She carried on a voluminous correspondence with many family members and friends, the latter including Havelock Ellis , Edward Carpenter , and Karl Pearson . Several volumes of these have been published posthumously, as were two early novels which she deemed unpublishable during her lifetime.
Black and white photograph of Olive Schreiner, seated, with one elbow on a desk and her head resting on that hand. She is wearing a white dress that falls loosely from her shoulders, gathered at the wrists and with ruffles at the throat. Her hair is pinned back with short curls in front.
Black and white photo of Olive Schreiner, head and shoulders only. She looks straight at the camera, her hair short around her face and her neckline high, with ruffles.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Features Phyllis Bentley
Influenced by Olive Schreiner 's Dreams, 1890, the collection consisted of four stories allegorically treating the themes of religion, class, sex, and daydreams.
Bentley, Phyllis. "O Dreams, O Destinations". Gollancz.
102, 126
Johnson, George M., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 191. Gale Research.
23
Friends, Associates Mathilde Blind
One of her travelling companions (and a close friend) was the New Woman novelist Mona Caird (famous for her declaration calling the institution of marriage a vexatious failure in the Westminster Review in 1888).
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 199. Gale Research.
38
Friends, Associates Emma Frances Brooke
EFB met Olive Schreiner either through the Fellowship of the New Life or the Men and Women's Club , where both were associates. Schreiner read but remained noncommittal about EFB 's unpublished paper, The Woman...
Friends, Associates Mona Caird
She met Arthur Symons in June 1889, and in the following month Thomas Hardy carefully arranged to sit between her and Rosamund Marriott Watson (and opposite F. Mabel Robinson ) at a dinner of the...
Textual Production Mona Caird
Scholar Ann Heilmann points out that this article significantly predated a series of commentaries of similar cast by Charlotte Perkins Gilman , Cicely Hamilton , Olive Schreiner , and Elizabeth Robins , which emerged over...
Reception Mona Caird
Where literary historian John Sutherland has called MCone of the most aggressive of the New Woman novelists,
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Ann Heilmann (who has led the scholarly rediscovery of the story of Caird's life) has argued that...
politics Jane Hume Clapperton
Others who attended the club included Annie Besant , Olive Schreiner , Elizabeth Blackwell , Henrietta Müller , and Eleanor Marx .
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
Bland, Lucy. Banishing the Beast: Feminism, Sex and Morality. Tauris Parke.
6
Intertextuality and Influence Caroline Clive
Despite the universal opinion that the sequel was decidedly weaker than the original, it nevertheless did well enough to go into several editions. The Saturday Review noted that it was a book which, even if...
Friends, Associates Michael Field
They made a friend of George Meredith some time before 1890 and visited him often.
Field, Michael, and William Rothenstein. Works and Days. Editors Moore, Thomas Sturge and D. C. Sturge Moore, J. Murray.
66
(When he sent them a signed copy of Modern Love, they were inspired to dance a Dionysic dance...
Friends, Associates Isabella Ormston Ford
The sisters were friends of a large group of local female socialists who all campaigned for sex equality, many of whom were influenced by Carpenter. These included Katharine Bruce Glasier , Edith Priestman , Julia Varley
politics Isabella Ormston Ford
She was also a member of the London-based Writers' Club , the Women's Institute —which embraced an educational programme of appalling size, to the frivolous mind—and the Pioneer Club , which counted IOF ,...
Friends, Associates Isabella Ormston Ford
Besides the Ford sisters, other members of the UDC included founding member James Ramsay MacDonald , executive committee member Helena Swanwick , and Vernon Lee , who was a good friend of IOF 's sister...
Intertextuality and Influence Julia Frankau
This tie broadens the social scope of the novel. Karl is Jewish but not an observant Jew. He wishes he could believe in Christianity for its redeeming message and wants to extend that choice to...
Education Katharine Bruce Glasier
While enrolled at Newnham, Conway was inspired—both by her teacher Helen Gladstone (daughter of the prime minister) and visiting speaker Olive Schreiner —to adopt strong, militantly feminist views. Schreiner, she later wrote, encouraged every bit...
Friends, Associates Katharine Bruce Glasier
Her involvement in socialist circles led her to acquaintance with Sidney and Beatrice Webb , Edward Hulton (editor of the Sunday Chronicle), and Robert Blatchford , for whom she wrote several articles.
Thompson, Laurence. The Enthusiasts. Victor Gollancz Limited.
71
With...

Timeline

2 May 1857: A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened...

Building item

2 May 1857

A grand dome designed by Panizzi was opened in what had been the central courtyard of the British Museum .

July 1889: Women's Suffrage: A Reply appeared in the...

Building item

July 1889

Women's Suffrage: A Reply appeared in the Fortnightly Review to counter Mary Augusta Ward 's Appeal Against Female Suffrage in the previous month's Nineteenth Century.

1895: Thomas Bird Mosher of Portland, Maine, began...

Writing climate item

1895

Thomas Bird Mosher of Portland, Maine, began publishing The Bibelot. A Reprint of Poetry & Prose for Book Lovers, a monthly series later collected as an annual volume, of exquisitely produced editions in tiny press-runs.

June 1908: The Women Writers' Suffrage League was established...

National or international item

June 1908

The Women Writers' Suffrage League was established by Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton .

Texts

Schreiner, Olive. An English-South African’s View of the Situation: Words in Season. Hodder and Stoughton, 1899.
Schreiner, Olive. Dream Life and Real Life: A Little African Story. T. Fisher Unwin, 1893.
Schreiner, Olive. Dreams. T. Fisher Unwin, 1890.
Cronwright-Schreiner, S. C., and Olive Schreiner. “Foreword”. Thoughts on South Africa, Frederick A. Stokes, 1923, pp. 7-8.
Schreiner, Olive. From Man to Man; or Perhaps Only . . . T. Fisher Unwin, 1926.
Showalter, Elaine, and Olive Schreiner. “Introduction”. The Story of an African Farm, Bantam, 1993, p. vii - xxi.
Schreiner, Olive. “Preface”. The Letters of Olive Schreiner, 1876-1920, edited by S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner, Hyperion Press, 1976, p. v - viii.
Schreiner, Olive. “Preface”. Olive Schreiner Letters: Volume 1: 1871-1899, edited by Richard Rive, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. vii - ix.
Schreiner, Olive. The Letters of Olive Schreiner, 1876-1920. Editor Cronwright-Schreiner, S. C., T. Fisher Unwin, 1924.
Schreiner, Olive, and S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner. The Political Situation. T. Fisher Unwin, 1896.
Schreiner, Olive. The Story of an African Farm. Chapman and Hall, 1883.
Schreiner, Olive. The Story of an African Farm. Bantam, 1993.
Schreiner, Olive. Thoughts on South Africa. T. Fisher Unwin, 1923.
Schreiner, Olive. Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland. T. Fisher Unwin, 1897.
Schreiner, Olive. Undine. Harper and Brothers, 1928.
Schreiner, Olive. Woman and Labour. T. Fisher Unwin, 1911.