Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Olive Schreiner
-
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 Schreiners Trooper Peter Halket of MashonalandWomens Writing, Vol.
7
, No. 2, 2000, 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.
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).
qtd. in
Thesing, William B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 199. Gale Research, 1999.
38
Friends, Associates
Amy Levy
She saw a good deal of Olive Schreiner
, who called her the most interesting girl she had met in England,
qtd. in
Beckman, Linda Hunt. Amy Levy: Her Life and Letters. Ohio University Press, 2000.
179
and also took her on two trips outside London at the very end...
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's unpublished paper, The Woman...
After her third delivery she decided to be sterilised, though she met with social disapproval even from nurses caring for her in hospital: Had yourself spayed, did you?
qtd. in
O’Mahoney, John. “Poet and Pioneer: Adrienne Rich”. The Guardian, 15 June 2002, pp. Review 20 - 3.
22
She later recalled her isolation during...
Intertextuality and Influence
Margaret Haig Viscountess Rhondda
Margaret Haig Thomas (later MHVR
) was influenced by the political ideas of John Stuart Mill
's The Subjection of Women (1869), Cicely Hamilton
's Marriage as a Trade (1909), and Olive Schreiner
's Woman and Labour (1911).
Eoff, Shirley. Viscountess Rhondda: Equalitarian Feminist. Ohio State University Press, 1991.
22-8, 30-1
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...
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...
Intertextuality and Influence
Gladys Henrietta Schütze
As a child GHSimagined that a person, particularly a lady, would have to be something very unusual to produce real books.
Schütze, Gladys Henrietta. More Ha’pence Than Kicks. Jarrolds.
Her participation was initially feared because Elizabeth Cobb
considered her too radical: a manhater who was warped in her moral nature.
Bland, Lucy. Banishing the Beast: Sexuality and the Early Feminists. New Press, 1995.
13
Olive Schreiner
, however, described her warmly, as a plucky, fearless, brave, true...
Leisure and Society
Henrietta Müller
With her resignation, Müller declared to Olive Schreiner
that the club was a piteous failure.
Bland, Lucy. Banishing the Beast: Sexuality and the Early Feminists. New Press, 1995.
43
She promised to start a similar group exclusively for women, but founded The Women's Penny Paper instead.
Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight. University of Chicago Press, 1992.
160n89
Literary responses
Flora Macdonald Mayor
Rediscovery of FMM
was fostered by Sybil Oldfield
, who in 1984 published an extensive account of Mayor's life and works (which she narrated in parallel with those of Mayor's contemporary Mary Sheepshanks
). During...
Occupation
George Meredith
GM
worked as a journalist for the Ipswich Journal, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the Morning Post (where he was editor from 1867 to 1868). He served as literary critic for the Westminister...
Occupation
Gladys Henrietta Schütze
GHS
was ejected during the first world war from the professional associations which she belonged to as a writer and journalist, the Society of Women Journalists
and the Literary Club
. This action resulted from...
