The Olive Schreiner Letters Project

The Olive Schreiner Letters Project

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1.1 The Olive Schreiner Letters Project is funded by the ESRC. It will transcribe, analyse and publish the complete extant Olive Schreiner letters presently in archival locations world-wide. Through this, it will also contribute theoretically and methodologically to the use of letters and other epistolary materials in social science and humanities research.

1.2 The feminist and socialist writer and social theorist Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) was one of the most important – and radical – social commentators of her day. Her published writings include novels (The Story of An African Farm, Undine, From Man to Man), allegories (Dreams, Dream Life and Real Life, Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland), social theory (The Political Situation, Closer Union, Woman and Labour).

1.3 Around 5000+ Schreiner letters are extant, with most never having been previously published or discussed. They are an unparalleled source for exploring the unfolding thinking of one of the great feminist theorists and key New Woman writers. They are also a rich resource around which to formulate methodological and theoretical means of analysing a large-scale epistolary dataset.

1.4 Schreiner’s developing analysis and social theorising in her letters includes such topics as colonialism under transition, metropolitan feminism and socialism, prostitution and its analysis, changing understandings of ‘race’ and capital, imperialism 'on the ground' in southern Africa, the South African War and its concentration camps and women’s relief organisations, international perspectives on women's franchise campaigns, labour issues, international feminist networks, pacifism and war economies, and political and economic changes in South Africa post WW1.