Undine

Olive Schreiner

Description

Originally published in 1929, "Undine" is a semi-autobiographical novel about life in colonial South Africa. Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) was a South African anti-war campaigner, intellectual, and author most famous for her highly-acclaimed novel “The Story of an African Farm” (1883), which deals with such issues as existential independence, agnosticism, individualism, and the empowerment of women. Other notable works by this author include: “Closer Union: a Letter on South African Union and the Principles of Government” (1909), and “Woman and Labour” (1911). Read & Co. Classics is proudly republishing this classic novel now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author and an Introduction by S. C. Cronwright-Schreiner.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 12 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781473397217
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

UNDINE
By
OLIVE SCHREINER
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY S. C. CRONWRIGHT-SCHREINER

First published in 1929



Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Classics
This edition is published by Read & Co. Classics, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


Contents
Oli ve Schreiner
INTRODUCTION
I A QUEER LITTLE CHILD
II UNDIN E’S JOTTINGS
III THE MAN WI TH THE MOUTH
IV GOI NG TO CHAPEL
V A SUNNY AFTERNOON AND A WILD NIGHT
VI GREENWOOD
VII LOVERS
VIII BE AUTIFUL SNOW
IX TRODDEN SNOW
X MELTED SNOW
XI A CLEVER LITTLE MAN AND A POOR LITTLE FOOL
XII S OLD HER LOVE
XIII A VERY WICKED WOMAN
XIV ON BOARD SHIP TO SOUTH AFRLCA
XV IN AN OX WAGGON
XVI NEW RUSH
XVII LITTLE IRONS
XVIII LITTLE IRONS AND A DIGGER
XIX ALBERT BLAIR
XX ALONE WI TH THE STARS




Olive Schreiner
Olive Schreiner was born on Wittebergen Reserve, Cape Colony (present-day Lesotho) in 1855. After finishing school, she found work as a governess and a schoolteacher, and during her free time began to work on a novel about her experiences in S outh Africa.
When Schreiner had saved enough money, she travelled to Britain, hoping to become a doctor. She lived in London where she began attending lectures at the Medical School, as well as attending socialist meetings. Schreiner met the publisher George Meredith, who in 1883 published her best-known novel, Story of an African Farm . A commercial and critical success, it is now seen as a defining work of early feminism – as is her later work, Women and La bour (1911).
Over the rest of her life, Schreiner made the acquaintance of a number of figures in London society, including future Prime Minister William Gladstone. In 1889, she returned to South Africa to be with her family. Her brother, William Schreiner, later became prime minister of Cape Colony. Over the next few years she published two collections of short stories, Dreams (1891) and Dream Life and Real Life (1893). She also became heavily involved in politics, and was a fierce opponent of racism and imperialism. Her 1897 work Trooper Peter Halkett of Mashonaland (1897) was a strong attack on British rule in S outh Africa.
At the outbreak of the First World War, Schreiner moved back to Britain. Over the next four years she was active in the peace movement and worked closely with organizations such as the Union of Democratic Control and the Non-Conscription Fellowship. She returned to South Africa in of August 1920, and dying following a heart attack late r that year.


INTRODUCTION
HERE, in this novel, which precedes The Story of an African Farm and has some curious and interesting facts associated with it, we have Olive Schreiner “Mewing her mi ghty youth.”
Some years before her death Olive Schreiner said to me that, if ever a biography of her were to be written, she would like me to write it, or, failing me, her “oldest and best friend,” Hav elock Ellis.
I was in London when she died, and wrote to Ellis as soon as possible. Telling him of her wish, I asked him if he would write the biography. This he found himself unable to do, but offered to place at my service all the information he had if I would undertake it. Without delay I engaged quarters near him and got to work. At our first “business” meeting, he brought up the subject of an unfinished novel of Olive’s, much to my surprise, for I had never even heard of it. This was Undine , the manuscript of which she had placed in his hands in 1884, shortly after they met. I had the manuscript typed and left the original and a carbon co py with him.
But the novel was not complete; the concluding part was missing. On my return to South Africa in March, 1921, I found the missing section among my wife’s papers. It consisted of twenty-two foolscap sheets in two separate lots which connected up unbrokenly with what preceded it. The handwriting is in Olive’s large, strong, rapid style, an approximate specimen of which is given on page 228 of her Letters . The paper is faded and the matter is clearly a final revision. At some time this manuscript had been posted to “Miss O. Schreiner, c/o Advocate Schreiner, Cape Town,” by her mother, whose handwriting is unmistakable. From the official cancellation of the postage stamps I cannot now make out when or where it was posted. The stamps are Cape Colony stamps, long out of date. Well weighing all the facts within my knowledge, I think, however, that the novel was completed in South Africa before she left for England in 1881, that the now-recovered missing section consists of the two parts mentioned in Olive’s letter to Ellis of the 20th November, 1884 (given later), that it was taken by her to her mother at Seymour at the end of 1876 (as mentioned in her Ratel Hoek journal later), and left there, or that she left it with her mother in Grahamstown as she passed through on her way to England in February, 1881, and finally that her mother posted it to Advocate Schreiner from Grahamstown after Olive’s return to South Africa (which was in November, 1889). There is another interesting fact in connection with this manuscript: on a wrapper tied round the roll I found Olive’s description of its contents, written in ink in her own handwriting, “Bit of early novel when I was abou t 16 years.”
We now come to the actual writing o f the novel.
The Kimberley Diamond Mine was discovered in July, 1871. The great rush that at once set in towards it soon caused it to be called New Rush, a name it retained until the Camp at the Diamond Fields was proclaimed as Kimberley in July, 1873.
Olive’s brother Theo (later a Senator) was one of the early diggers who joined the Camp at New Rush. He was followed by his sister Ettie (later the temperance orator), while their youngest brother, Will (later Prime Minister of Cape Colony), used to travel up from Cape Colony to spend his school holidays working with Theo on his claims. Like other diggers, the Schreiners lived in tents near the edge of the mine, where Kaffir “boys,” under an overseer, worked the claims. Theo himself supervised the “washing” and personally did th e “sorting.”
In 1872 Olive went to visit her brother and sister. Setting out from the little village of Hertzog where her parents lived, not far from Grahamstown, and travelling by passenger coach the hundreds of miles to the Diamond Fields, she arrived at New Rush early in December. During her stay she lived in tents as the others did. There was no other shelter; and a “pretty time” they had of it in the dust, the heat, the violent thunderstorms and the myriad fleas of the Camp.
The first mention of Undine appears in her New Rush journal on the 18th June, 1873: “I have finished the first Chapter of Undine Bock this morning.” 1 At the time she was eighteen years and three months old.
It must not, however, be inferred from this entry that she had only then begun the novel. Among her papers I found (and still have) a small, cheap, paper-covered child’s exercise book, part of which she had used for doing her juvenile sums. The colour and condition of the paper, the writing, spelling, and other factors about this little book of sixteen pages indicate, in my opinion, that its contents considerably antedate the manuscript of the book we now have. But they are without doubt part of the novel; for practically the whole of the little one’s “scribble” is included in Undine as we now have it.
After this entry of the 18th June the next reference to the novel is in her Hertzog journal of the 3rd November, 1873. She “has not yet finished the first chapter of A Queer L ittle Girl. ”
From May, 1874, to the end of February, 1875, she was acting as governess at Colesberg. Her journal of this period contains no reference to Undine . However, as will presently be seen, she was just about finishing the first draft of it.
In March, 1875, we find her employed at the farm Ganna Hoek (that portion styled Klein Ganna Hoek in the Life ), teaching the children of Mr. and Mrs. Stoffel Fouché, Dutch farmers. This farm lies in the Karoo mountain-veld of Cradock (Cape Colony) about twenty-five miles southwest of the village and at that time some two hundred miles from the nearest railway. Here, possibly, Olive wrote the whole of the second draft of Undine , except for the revision of parts of Ratel Hoek, a farm about sixty miles away, near Tarkast ad, in 1876.
A full description of the whole of Ganna Hoek, belonging mainly to the Fouchés and the Cawoods (Olive’s intimate friends), is given in the Life (pages 103-120). From these pages I now give an extract with photograph, describing the room in which she lived and wrote while engaged on this novel:
“It is the little room under the flat roof of the lean-to the window of which may be seen between the aloe and the ladder; to the right of the ladder is the baking-oven with the kitchen chimmey above it. The door of the oven is through the kitchen wall; the oven is built of brick and has no chimney; a huge fire is made in it, the ‘live’ coals are then scraped out, the bread is put in and the door closed; in c