New Olive Schreiner letter!

[Apologies for the late appearance of this blog, due to my having been in a minor accident]

A new and very interesting Olive Schreiner letter has been found, notified by one of the important private collectors of Schreiner material. It is to Mary Sauer and dates from the period in the early 1890s, when OS had not long returned to South Africa and was living in Matjiesfontein and working in a white hot fever on various writing projects. It was also the period when OS was considering whether she was or was not ‘a marrying kind of woman’. The letter records her passionate feelings about Mary Sauer, and also about her work, and trying to dovetail seeing her and engaging with it. It also mentions a Cambridge friend, a woman whose intellectual prowess she rated highly. The letter overall provides an incremental but significant addition to the stock of knowledge about OS’s thoughts and activities in this important period of time. A full and accurate transcription will appear in the Olive Schreiner Letters Online collections as soon as possible.

Last updated: 14 April 2023