Full Description
The Story of an African Farm (1883) marks an early appearance in fiction of Victorian society's emerging New Woman. The novel follows the spiritual quests of Lyndall and Waldo, who each struggle against social constraints in their search for happiness and truth: Lyndall, against society's expectations of women, and Waldo against stifling class conventions. Written from the margins of the British empire, the novel addresses the conflicts of race, class, and gender that shaped the lives of European settlers in Southern Africa before the Boer Wars.
This Broadview edition includes appendices that link the novel to histories of empire and colonialism, the emergence of the New Woman, and the conflicts between science and religion in the Victorian period. Contemporary reviews are also included.
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Olive Schreiner: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
The Story of an African Farm
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface to the Second Edition
Glossary
Contents
Appendix A: Historical Contexts
James Anthony Froude, from Two Lectures on South Africa (1880)
Olive Schreiner, from Thoughts on South Africa (1891;1923)
Appendix B: Philosophical Contexts
Herbert Spencer
From "Progress: Its Law and Cause" (1857)
From First Principles of a New System of Philosophy (1871)
Charles Darwin, from On the Origin of Species (1859)
Appendix C: Social Contexts
John Stuart Mill, from The Subjection of Women (1869)
Havelock Ellis, from Sex in Relation to Society (1910)
Olive Schreiner, from Woman and Labor (1911)
Appendix D: Literary Contexts
Olive Schreiner, from Dreams (1890)
Charles Dilke, from Problems of Greater Britain (1890)
Appendix E: Contemporary Reviews
Henry Norman, "Theories and Practice of Modern Fiction," The Fortnightly Review (December 1883)
Canon Malcolm MacColl, "An Agnostic Novel," The Spectator (13 August 1887)
H. Rider Haggard, "About Fiction," Contemporary Review (February 1887)
Andrew Lang, "Theological Romances," Contemporary Review (June 1888)
Select Bibliography
