The Story of an African Farm (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

Schreiner, Olive

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140431845 ISBN 13: 9780140431841

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1983

Synopsis

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.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

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.

About the Author:

Olive Schreiner (1855-1920), was a South African author and feminist. 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).

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Publication date: 1983
• ISBN 10: 0140431845
• ISBN 13: 9780140431841
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304