Olive Schreiner and the Progress of Feminism: Evolution, Gender and Empire

by C. Burdett

Overview

Olive Schreiner and the Progress of Feminism explores two key areas: first, the debates taking place in England during the last two decades of the nineteenth century about the position of women; and, second, the volatile events of the 1890s in South Africa, which culminated in war between the British Empire and the Boer republics in 1899. Through a detailed reading of the fictional and non-fictional writing of one extraordinary woman, Olive Schreiner, it traces the complex relations between gender and empire in a modernizing world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780333615324
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	01/12/2001
Edition description:	2001
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

CAROLYN BURDETT is Principal Lecturer in English Literature at the School of Arts and Humanities, University of North London.

Table of Contents

Dedication Acknowledgements Introduction: Women and Progress Times and Seasons The Romance of Sexual Science and the Making of Modern Feminism Capturing the Ideal: New Men and Women in From Man to Man Love, Death and Money in Mashonaland War Stories Giving and Forgiving, Truth and Reconciliation Endnotes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

'...the best single study of the author to appear since her death in 1920.' - Daryl Ogden, Victorian Studies

From the Publisher

Burdett puts Schreiner's work into their full contexts,reading with precision,coherence,and generosity and providing an emotionally and intellectually vigorous portrait.

Choice

Though Schreiner (1855-1920) became famous in England of the 1880s for demanding that women be allowed a full part in the progress of modern Europe, Burdett (English literature, U. of North London) argues that she always remained a distinctly colonial writer. She explains that the South African was one of her country's most outspoken critics of the British Empire, and examines how her opposition to imperialism shaped her response to European modernity and women's relation to progress. Some of the material has been published previously. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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