This early work by Olive Schreiner was originally published in 1923 and
we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography.
'Thoughts on South Africa' is a posthumously published collection of
writings containing her observations of the lands an people of South
Africa. Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner was born on 24th March 1855 at
the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern
Cape, near Herschel in South Africa. In 1880, Olive set sail for the
United Kingdom with the goal of taking a position as a trainee nurse at
the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh in Scotland. Unfortunately ill-health
prevented her from studying and she was forced to concede that writing
would and could be her only work in life. In 1883, she produced her
first published work The Story of an African Farm which she penned under
the pseudonym Ralph Iron. This novel details the lives of three
characters, first as children and then as adults, and caused significant
controversy over its frank portrayal of freethought, feminism,
premarital sex, and transvestitism. She became increasingly involved
with the politics of the South Africa, leading her to make influential
acquaintances such as Cecil John Rhodes, with whom she eventually became
disillusioned and wrote a scathing allegory in his honour.
