Schreiner, OLIVE

Schreiner, OLIVE, a gifted South African author, daughter of a Lutheran clergyman at Capetown, who startled the conventional English world of letters in 1883 by 'The Story of an African Farm: a Novel. By Ralph Iron.' The simple yet forcible style of its pictures of rough life on a Boer farm, and of the spiritual problems that rend an inquiring soul, the penetrating pathos, and the feeling of intense personality underlying the book arrested even the readers of the circulating library. Dreams (1890), a group of spiritual allegories, was followed by Dream Life and Real Life (1893) and Trooper Peter Hullett of Mashonaland (1897). Married in 1894 to Mr Cronwright, Mrs Schreiner-Cronwright opposed the policy of Mr Rhodes, and during the war of 1899-1901 was an active pro-Boer.