38 Facts About Olive Schreiner

Olive Schreiner was a South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual.

Olive Schreiner is best remembered today for her novel The Story of an African Farm, which has been highly acclaimed.

Olive Schreiner's published works and other surviving writings promote implicit values such as moderation, friendship, and understanding amongst all peoples, and avoid the pitfalls of political radicalism, which she consciously eschewed.

Olive Schreiner is known for her later novel, From Man To Man Or Perhaps Only, published posthumously.

Olive Schreiner had not completed its revisions before her death.

From Man to Man or Perhaps Only was said by Olive Schreiner to be her favourite among her novels.

Karel Schoeman, a historian, and authority on Olive Schreiner in South Africa, wrote that she was an outstanding figure in a South African context.

Olive Emily Albertina Schreiner was the ninth of twelve children born to a missionary couple at the Wesleyan Missionary Society station at Wittebergen in the Eastern Cape, near Herschel in South Africa.

Olive Schreiner was named after her three older brothers, Oliver, Albert and Emile, each of whom died before she was born.

Olive Schreiner's childhood was a harsh one: her father was loving and gentle, though impractical, which led to difficulties for the family; but her mother Rebecca was intent on teaching her children the same restraint and self-discipline that had been a part of her upbringing.

Olive Schreiner received virtually all of her initial education from her mother, who was well-read and gifted.

Olive Schreiner remained as headmaster until late 1897, but continued to run the junior school until 1901.

Olive Schreiner died in 1901 at the Grand Hotel in Eastbourne and was interred in the town.

When Olive Schreiner was six, her father Gottlob transferred to Healdtown in the Eastern Cape to run the Wesleyan training institute there.

Olive Schreiner was forced to make his own living for the first time in his life and tried a business venture.

When Olive Schreiner was nine, her sister Helen died, and this had a profound effect on the survivor's outlook.

Olive Schreiner dedicated the 'Prelude' of From Man to Man to Ellie, as well as to her own daughter, who died shortly after her birth.

Olive Schreiner attended his school, where she received formal education for the first time.

Olive Schreiner's siblings were very religious, but, like many learned Victorians, Olive had already questioned the Christianity of her parents, and it was the cause of many arguments that she had with her family.

Consequently, when Theo and her brother left Cradock for the diamond fields of Griqualand West, Olive Schreiner chose to become a governess.

Olive Schreiner's apostasy did not sit well with the traditional farm folk among whom she worked.

Olive Schreiner had no choice but to resume her transient lifestyle, moving between various households and towns, until she returned briefly to her parents in 1874.

Since her parents were no more financially secure than before and because of her ill-health, Olive Schreiner was forced to resume working to support them.

Olive Schreiner had always wanted to be a doctor but had never had enough money to pay for the training.

Olive Schreiner was forced to concede that writing would and could be her only work in life.

Olive Schreiner finally met Ellis in 1884 when she went with him to a meeting of the Progressive Organisation, a group for freethinkers to discuss political and philosophical views.

Olive Schreiner had refused a proposal from her doctor, Bryan Donkin, but he was irritatingly persistent in his suit of her.

Olive Schreiner did not reciprocate her feelings, preferring Elizabeth Cobb.

In London, Olive Schreiner often found herself at odds with society's expectations of "respectable behaviour".

Olive Schreiner clashed with a succession of landlords over her frequent male visitors, and once, outside her lodgings at 16 Portsea Place near Marble Arch, she was nearly arrested as a prostitute.

Olive Schreiner worked on an introduction to Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Olive Schreiner put aside these doubts and they were married in 1894, after which they settled at Cronwright's farm.

Olive Schreiner's worsening health forced the couple to move constantly, while her first and only child, a daughter, died within a day.

Olive Schreiner tried to persuade South African officials to turn away from the path of war, and, when that failed, wrote The South African Question by an English South African in an attempt to open the English public's eyes to the reality of the situation.

The last few years of Olive Schreiner's life were marked by ill-health and an increasing sense of isolation.

Olive Schreiner joined the newly founded Cape Branch of the Women's Enfranchisement League in 1907, becoming its vice-president.

When Woman and Labour was finally published in 1911, Olive Schreiner was severely ill, her asthma worsened by attacks of angina.

The Olive Schreiner Letters Online database is a collection of over 5,000 extant letters written to or from Schreiner.