Book description
Two cousins grow up in the 1860s on a lonely farm in the thirsty
mountain veld. Em is fat, sweet and contented, a born housewife;
Lyndall, clever, restless, beautiful . . . and doomed. Their childhood
is disrupted by a bombastic Irishman, Bonaparte Blenkins, who gains
uncanny influence over the girls' gross, stupid stepmother . . . This
novel is one of the most astonishing, least-expected fiction
masterpieces of its time and one that has had an enduring influence.
Olive Schreiner 1855-1920, South African author and feminist, b.
Wittebergen Reserve, Cape Colony. After several years as a governess,
she went to England in 1881, taking with her the manuscript of her
famous novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883). Her later works
included Dreams (1921), a collection of allegories; Women and Labour
(1911); and a significant novel, unfinished, From Man to Man (1926).
