by Olive Schreiner

Born in Wittebergen, Cape Colony, in 1855, Olive Emilie Albertina Schreiner was the ninth child of a German missionary, Gottlob Schreiner, and his English wife, Rebecca Lyndall. Home-educated and largely self-taught, she wrote one of the most influential and controversial novels—The Story of an African Farm—of the late Victorian era. She spent much of her childhood at various mission stations, and as an adolescent she kept house for her older brothers and sisters. In 1874 Schreiner became a governess, working for several Boer families and writing in her spare time. Her most famous work draws attention to the lives of working-class people, especially women, and she took pains to publish it at a price that its working-class audience could afford. In 1881 Schreiner traveled to Great Britain, hoping to train as a nurse in Edinburgh, Scotland...