Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/1
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	29 September 1886
Address From	The Convent, Harrow, London
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1897: 105

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 29 September 1886, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner lived in the Convent in Harrow from late May to the end of September 1896.

1:  Dear E.C.
2: 
3:  I’ve been ill for some time & your book has been more help & comfort
4:  to me than ever before. I thought you’d like to know. There are
5:  times when one doesn’t realize what a help one has been to others, &
6:  feels sad, & then if ever you feel like that I’d like you to know
7:  what a help you’ve been to me.
8: 
9:  I’m moving into town in a few days to see if I can’t get better
10:  there & I’ll let you have my address when I’m settled so that if
11:  you come I may perhaps see you.
12: 
13:  Olive Schreiner
14: 
15: 
16: 
17: 

Notation
'Your book' refers to: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/2
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	13 January 1887
Address From	Hotel Roth, Clarens, Geneva, Switzerland
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 118-9

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 13 January 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Hotel Roth
2:  Clarens
3:  Lake of Geneva
4:  Jan 13th 1887
5: 
6:  Dear Edward Carpenter
7: 
8:  I’ve heard that K. Pearson is all right so don’t trouble to
9:  enquire.
10: 
11:  It is all wonderfully white & peaceful here. One seems to feel that
12:  not only the tiny problems of one’s own small life, but the great
13:  world problems will be well solved at last when one looks at it all.
14:  They have real, "live" stars here that twinkle like at the Cape,
15:  almost, but this sky isn’t like ours.
16: 
17:  My work seems pressing on me so, it almost crushes me. If I could get
18:  away among the mountains, & be quite alone I feel as if I could
19:  grapple with it. I mean to do that in the Spring. The question of sex
20:  is so very complex, & you cannot treat it adequately at all unless you
21:  show its complexity. Complex as our labour question would be to
22:  ^problem is^ & difficult to embody in any form of art, I feel it would
23:  be far more simple than this. I sometimes in my moments of weakness
24:  feel inclined to leave it ^the sex question^ & turn to the other problem
25:  which is always drawing me; but if one once turned aside from the work
26:  one felt to be one’s own and took another before the time came, one
27:  would be lost. It would be as if a great iron weight had rolled off me
28:  if I had once said what I have to say. unreadable
29: 
30:  Yes, Ellis has a strange reserved spirit. The tragedy of his life is
31:  that the outer man gives no expression to the won-derful beautiful
32:  soul in him, which now & then flashes out on you when you come near
33:  him. In some ways he has the noblest nature of any human being I know.
34: 
35:  I am ashamed of the letters I wrote you the other day, but I’ve been
36:  very weak & ill, with no power of self-repression left. You won’t
37:  mind?
38: 
39:  Olive
40: 
41: 
42: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/3
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	11 April 1887
Address From	Grand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 124-5

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 11 April 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Grand Hotel
2:  Alassio
3:  Italy
4:  April 11 / 87
5: 
6:  Dear Edward Carpenter
7: 
8:  Your card was forwarded me here. Thankyou for your the paper. All
9:  socialist news is of intense interest, & I hear none.
10: 
11:  //I want to know about the book, & also I want to repeat my suggestion
12:  that you should reprint in the form of a leaflet that page in Towards
13:  Dem. called Have Faith, for the use of those in physical suffering
14:  especially.
15: 
16:  I cannot tell you how valuable that first section of Have Faith is. So
17:  exceedingly common place as it seems in one sense, it puts better than
18:  is put anywhere else to my knowledge that profound & all comforting
19:  truth of the compensation that underlies life. Please do this.
20: 
21:  You must have had a good time at Sheffield with Mrs Wilson & ?Krop.
22:  There are times when I feel a longing for human intercourse & sympathy,
23:  but it is best I should be alone.
24: 
25:  When I have earned 40 pounds I am going to buy a tiny cottage
26:  somewhere in Switzerland with a garden & live there. I know by
27:  experience what that life means, how much of freedom & joy. It’s
28:  usually true how in such a life one almost has to give up animal food
29:  because one can’t kill the things!!
30: 
31:  I am able to work again. It is very splendid. I was ill at Mendrisio,
32:  I thought I should not get well again, but I am all right now. Are you
33:  well? I would like in your letters a little more about yourself:
34: 
35:  Have you read Karl Pearson’s pamphlet "Sex & Socialism", just
36:  published? What do you think of it. It expresses most exactly my views
37:  on the subject except with regard to the state supporting the
38:  childbearing woman &c.
39: 
40:  Perhaps it’s better you shouldn’t see him just now. We have each
41:  to fight out our lives alone, we can never intentionally help other
42:  people, the help comes by accident when it comes.
43:  I have not heard anything of him since I left England.
44: 
45:  I don’t think I have anything for the song book. When I make verse
46:  it is something too irregular to be sung.
47: 
48:  The sun is very glorious here, something so infinitely "smoothing" is
49:  in this sea & sky, it is as if something was stroking you, but it
50:  doesn’t touch or help me as Switzerland does. Oh to wake up & see
51:  the sun rising with a sheen of pink over all the snow fields! It is
52:  something worth having lived for.
53: 
54:  Why am I having all this rest & pleasure, when you are all in the dark
55:  fighting
56: 
57:  There is something I thought of last night in bed that I wanted to say
58:  to you; now I can’t remember it, so this must go without it.
59: 
60:  Yours with love
61:  Olive Schreiner
62: 
63:  You are right about the simplification of life, it is not a branch
64:  question, it is a root question.
65: 
66:  ^We have little shocks of earthquake here every day. I am living in an
67:  empty Hotel from which every one has fled who could. It is very quiet
68:  & good for work. I can walk alone on the terrace all day with the sea
69:  & sunlight.^
70: 
71: 
72: 

Notation
The books referred to are: Karl Pearson (1887) Socialism and Sex London: W. Reeves, later included in his The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of essays and lectures London: T. Fisher Unwin; Edward Carpenter (1888) Chants of Labour London: Swan Sonnenschein. For Carpenter's 'simplification of life' ideas, see Edward Carpenter (1905) The Simplification of Life: From the Writings of Edward Carpenter (ed. Harry Roberts) London: A. Treherne & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/4
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 12 April 1887
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 126

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 12 April 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Alassio
2:  Italy
3:  Tuesday night
4: 
5:  My dear old Friend
6: 
7:  I don’t know why I suddenly want to write to you unless it is that
8:  there’s a man here, who looks exactly like you, such a nice French
9:  man with his wife, & I saw him walking up the passage just now. I
10:  never talk to them but I feel a little thrill of pleasure whenever I
11:  see him. When you & Oates go to Capri I wish you’d come round this
12:  way & sleep here a night. I’m nice now, I’m not like I used to be.
13:  And I’d take you & show you both my ruined church, & you never saw
14:  any thing so nice. I am sure send you ought. You’ll do much more
15:  work when you get back for having a little rest. Let me have the song
16:  book please. I’ll send you my book when it’s done - which will be
17:  never.
18: 
19:  The little sheep here are so nice & they walk about after their
20:  shepherds. It seems to me that everything here is so beautiful. The
21:  sea & sky are such a lovely blue now.
22: 
23:  Edward, do you know I’m beginning to see our Socialist movement much
24:  more clearly & as a whole since I’m here, & can look at it from a
25:  distance, & I see many things with regard to it that were not clear to
26:  me before we might in fact many things have got clear to me of late on
27:  many subject. And at the same time I have a feeling stronger that ever
28:  before of the mystery & insolubility of things. What little tiny
29:  children we are & what does it mean
30: 
31:  Good night; now, I must write. I am just having a little rest in
32:  talking to you. If ever you know Karl Pearson will you try to love him
33:  very much? You will bring him just what he needs, & perhaps he would
34:  strengthen you a little as he has strengthened me so much. I wish I
35:  was a man that I might be friends with all of you, but you know my sex
36:  must always divide. I only feel like a man, but to you all I seem a
37:  woman! Has George’s wife got her baby? There is a pretty little
38:  Italian peasant baby here that I am so fond of. The men here seem so
39:  happy & do nothing & sit in the sun. The women look tired & over
40:  worked, but yet happier than ours. I am living pretty cheaply here
41:  because the hotel keeper took me for less because I came when there
42:  was no one, but I somehow feel reproached because I am enjoying so
43:  much. You know the kind of feeling. I ought to get through more work
44:  than I do with everything so comfortable.
45: 
46:  Olive
47: 
48:  ^Send back my dreams. I don’t want to loose that MS. The two printed
49:  ones are feeble & were written long ago. OS^
50: 
51: 
52: 

Notation
The book that will 'never be done' is From Man to Man, and the allegories referred to appeared in Dreams. Which particular allegories Schreiner is referring to cannot be established as she was writing a number of them at this time. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/5
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	23 April 1887
Address From	Grand Hotel, Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 127

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 23 April 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Grand Hotel
2:  Alassio
3:  Italy
4: 
5:  Why didn’t you come to Agni while I was still here It’s quite
6:  close. I am leaving this on third ^of May^ get to Arona on Lake Maggiore
7:  the same evening & stay there for a couple of days going about the
8:  Lake in a steamer before I go on to Switzerland It’s wonderfully
9:  restful going about on these lake steamers, the most restful kind of
10:  motion there is. If you found it in your way to be there just then we
11:  could go about together. It’s right on your way to Agni; the direct
12:  like line if you come the St. Gotthard way to Italy. If you come later
13:  I’ll be somewhere near the lake of Lucerne, I think at ?Aeusty! If
14:  you felt inclined you might have a look at me in passing eh? There is
15:  nothing helps one like travelling when one is in pain. It’s well to
16:  say "work", but there’s a certain amount of pain which must be
17:  stilled before one can work, that’s just it.
18: 
19:  I wish you could come to Italy soon, it’s no fancy only because one
20:  is in England & the without the sun; that makes one feel it would help
21:  one so. You don’t know how it helps me in the morning ^when I wake^ &
22:  first I feel that load with which one wakes, & then the thought "there
23:  will be sunshine!" You’ll soon feel stronger here.
24: 
25:  What I wanted to say & forgot was an idea which likely you’ve also
26:  had which shows the "scientific"!!!! ground which underlies, (if we
27:  choose to unearth it) our pleas in favour of sy simplicity of living.
28:  I illustrate it by the analogy of a palm tree, I’ll work it out &
29:  show you some day. The last days I’ve not been working. I’ve got
30:  into a wild restless state again, & must "move on."
31: 
32:  I’m glad about the book. My book’s going to be lovely, only no
33:  publisher will take it, & the libraries won’t circulate it.
34: 
35:  Olive Schreiner
36: 
37:  If you think it would be restful I’ll like to much to see you. You &
38:  Mrs Walters are the only two people ^I’d like to see.^
39: 
40:  ^Thank you for telling me a little about yourself. Send me a card to
41:  know how you are. Please soon.^
42: 
43: 
44: 

Notation
Which book of Carpenter's this letter refers to cannot be established. Schreiner's 'my book' comment concerns From Man to Man. Rive's (1987) version omits part of the letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/6
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	19 May 1887
Address From	Clarens, Switzerland
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 127-8

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 19 May 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Clarens
2:  May 19 / 87
3: 
4:  Dear Edward Carpenter
5: 
6:  Your letter (but not card) was forwarded to me here today. It has made
7:  me happy. I like to know it is coming right in your life. It is
8:  sometimes good & even necessary to be separated for a time from those
9:  we love; if it is a separation only in body not in mind, we come back
10:  & are nearer to them than ever.
11: 
12:  //I came on here last week from Gersau. I thought I should be better
13:  here, but I am going on Sunday to Paris. If I am still there I should
14:  like very much to see you; it would be something to look forward to.
15:  But when I have been some time in a place I get such horror of it, and
16:  then I have to go on somewhere else. I’ll send you my address on a
17:  card when I get there. I’ve never been in Paris & know no one there
18:  but I think it’ll do my head good to see the houses & the people. I
19:  have been quite alone since I left England, have hardly spoken to
20:  anyone. I haven’t done any work. I don’t feel as if I should ever
21:  do any work any more. Must keep on moving on moving on.
22: 
23:  Yours,
24:  O.S.
25: 
26:  ^I send you two little allegories of mine. Send them me back because
27:  I’ve been too tired to copy them.^
28: 
29: 
30: 

Notation
The 'two little allegories' sent to Carpenter with this letter cannot be established as Schreiner was writing a number of them at this time. Rive's (1987) version omits part of the letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/7
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 2 June 1887
Address From	134 Rue d?Assas, 6th Arrondissement, Paris, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 128

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 2 June 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  134 Rue d’Assas
2:  Paris
3:  Tuesday
4: 
5:  Shall be here till Monday or Tuesday I think when I go on to England.
6:  Shall take rooms somewhere at East End of London but don’t suppose I
7:  shall stay more than a few weeks.
8: 
9:  Such a terrible melancholy comes over me when I’ve been a few days
10:  in a place that I have to move on. It’s like having brain fever.
11: 
12:  Do come & see me when you pass through; I may be going to the Cape in
13:  a few weeks & then shan’t see you again. Physically I’m much
14:  better.
15: 
16:  Is the book ready yet I’m waiting for it.
17: 
18:  Send me a card, to know when you are coming to Paris.
19: 
20:  O.S.
21: 
22:  I’m trying to write an allegory today.
23: 
24: 
25: 

Notation
Which particular allegory Schreiner was trying to write at this time cannot be established. Rive's (1987) version has been misdated and omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/8
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday 8 June 1887
Address From	50 Gore Road, Hackney, London
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 128-9

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 8 June 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner arrived in Gore Road on 8 June 1887 where she was resident until late August, then after short visits elsewhere she returned there for September that year.

1:  London E.C.
2:  Wednesday
3: 
4:  ^Doesn’t require an answer.^
5: 
6:  I will send the money to Mill thorp tomorrow.
7: 
8:  You don’t know what a help you have been to me. Just now I am not
9:  good for you. You are suffering much more than you know. I doubt
10:  whether you are realy better except physically than when you went away.
11:  You must not write even to me about the subject on which you talked
12:  to me unless it is restful to you: but my mind will always be
13:  wandering after you. Perhaps such a bitter time of suffering lies
14:  before you: perhaps, great gladness, the realization almost of an
15:  ideal. But whoever suffers it will be your nature that suffers either
16:  through sympathy unreadable or through itself.
17: 
18:  You don’t know how much you have helped me today & yesterday.
19: 
20:  I have found some rooms near the Victoria Park, & am going to furnish
21:  them tomorrow. Address
22:  50 Gore Road
23:  Victoria Park E.
24: 
25:  I would have come to meet you tomorrow at the publishers but you need
26:  quiet & rest if that be possible now. Your face looked like a little
27:  tired child’s when you were asleep in the train.
28: 
29:  Yours
30:  Olive Schreiner
31: 
32: 
33: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/9
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	12 August 1887
Address From	50 Gore Road, Hackney, London
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 129

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 12 August 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  50 Gore Rd
2: 
3:  Dear E.C.
4: 
5:  I’m somewhat tired this evening. I wish sometimes that we were both
6:  Christians that we might pray for eachother. I would pray for you. At
7:  last you will find that you will drift away & away from the things you
8:  now love. You will be free, & they will be happy in eachother, & ^you^
9:  will see what this all meant. You will see the good you have got.
10: 
11:  //I am going up to Yorkshire on Sunday, first to a solitary little
12:  cottage on the York Lancashire side of the moors I want to rest so. I
13:  am well & working but shall work better there. After two weeks I want
14:  to go to Kirkly moorside. Can you tell me anything about it, & if
15:  there is any little quiet village in that part of Yorkshire would suit
16:  that you know of Don’t trouble to write though if out of mood.
17: 
18:  What would you ask me to pray for for you if praying was any use? I
19:  would ask you to pray that myself might die. I don’t mean my body
20:  but all that longs or wishes for anything. It dies so slowly, but it
21:  does die.
22: 
23:  I have given Englands Ideal & Towards Dem to the Editor of an evening
24:  paper & asked him to review them. If favourably, well, if not
25:  favourable still well if it makes West End people read them.
26: 
27:  Good bye.
28:  Olive S.
29: 

Notation
The books referred to are: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal, and other papers on social subjects London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/10
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	29 August 1887
Address From	na
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 29 August 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  [page/s missing] I would take your face close up to mine & make it
2:  warm.
3: 
4:  I am well going to make my book splendid if I live. You will I work
5:  hard bye & bye & do better works than ever. I thought you weren’t
6:  going to Whitby till next week. Perhaps I’ll come along with Chubb &
7:  Dirks if you can put me up for a night at Millthorp.
8: 
9:  I’m so perfectly muddle headed I don’t know what I’m going to do. I
10:  must think it out. Oh my darling you mustn’t have pain, you must get
11:  nice, & hard, & strong.
12: 
13:  Olive Schreiner
14: 
15: 
16: 

Notation
The start of the letter may be missing. 'My book' is likely to refer to From Man to Man.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/11
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 5 September 1887
Address From	Whitby, North Yorkshire
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 129

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 5 September 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Whitby
2:  Tuesday
3: 
4:  When you have read the enclosed, (any time when you’ve nothing else
5:  to do) please return it to me & tell me whether you think it worth
6:  publishing. It doesn’t say what I see, how the soul stood up &
7:  wrapped its cloak about it, & looked up.
8: 
9:  I have a curious idea that you would write a story so well. Won’t
10:  you try? It is only in work that has no connection with the self that
11:  we can find rest to our spirits. Life, personal life, is a great
12:  battlefield. Those who enter it must fight. Those who enter it & will
13:  not fight get riddled with bullets. The only thing for them is keep
14:  out of it, & have no personal life. This as much whether the object be
15:  love & sympathy as whether it be wealth & power. One will never find a
16:  man to love that some other woman does not desire. Write a little
17:  story. I should love it so tenderly is ^you did.
18: 
19:  Your friend
20:  O.S.^
21: 
22:  ^The lights that it had unreadable^
23: 
24:  This ?nectie’ll grow to be old in time! If
25: 
26:  Had a lovely bath this morning, quite different from the others; great
27:  big breakers were coming in, & rolled you over.
28: 
29:  Somebody’s baby had no one to put them to sleep last night. It’ll
30:  never forget that it was put to sleep; no one ever tried to put it to
31:  sleep before,
32: 
33:  I’m going to write to your sister & ask her if she won’t come to
34:  see me some afternoon as soon as I get back to Town.
35: 
36:  [missing page/s] ^...other ways.^
37: 
38:  Good bye Ed Carpenter
39:  Olive Schreiner
40: 
41:  ^...got 19 letters from Todmorden by this morning’s post! I love
42:  these rooms better than any I’ve been in in England. I should stay
43:  here till I left E if I wasn’t paying for my rooms in Town. It’s a
44:  quite perfect day.^
45: 

Notation
There seems to be a page or pages missing, after '...back to Town.' and before ^...other ways^. 'The enclosed' is no longer attached and it is not known which piece of writing it refers to. Rive's (1987) version has been misdated and omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/12
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Saturday 10 September 1887
Address From	50 Gore Road, Hackney, London
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 10 September 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  50 Gore Rd
2:  Victoria Park
3:  Saturday
4: 
5:  Dear Edward Carpenter
6: 
7:  I send your St. Augustine. It has been sweet to me to think you rested
8:  even for one night. The face with its short beard lying right up
9:  against his shoulder. When he goes & you are alone again & that
10:  terrible sinking comes write & tell me please ^unreadable^. When he goes
11:  away from you he always has to go back to someone else & then the
12:  terrible ^sinking^ as if all the blood was going out of your body. Is it
13:  really getting better? There is such a stick under stick under my
14:  heart when I think of it all.
15: 
16:  Are you working? Is that red book in the pocket getting fuller?
17:  Remember you must live for that. There lies before you a fuller richer
18:  period of work than any you have yet known. Sometimes I think it would
19:  be best for you to go away to America & see Whitman & folks there for
20:  a bit. Then I feel that if it is possible it is best for you to stay
21:  just where you are, & harden. It will come right at last, at last. I
22:  wish I knew all. You must be gentle to her, because its hard for her
23:  too; & she hasn’t the larger things to fall back on that you have.
24: 
25:  //I didn’t know that you & he ever came quite close to each other
26:  still; I thought your life was all quite empty. I understand now,
27:  better. I am thinking of you in the morning, & at evening & at night.
28:  You are not many moments out of my thoughts. unreadable
29: 
30:  Please remember me to George. No one knows I have returned to Town so
31:  I’m having a good quiet time for work & my cough is better than
32:  it’s been for many months.
33: 
34:  //Did you see what old Whitman said when they showed ^told^ him ^about^
35:  Swinburne’s article? "I thought Mr Swinburne liked my poetry"; -
36:  nothing else! I don’t think it would be good for you to come to
37:  London. Either stay just were you are or go right away to America.
38:  unreadable Work will help you; nothing but work.
39: 
40:  Good bye, your comrade
41:  Olive
42: 
43:  I wasn’t angry when ^you^ went away! Sometimes a great flood of
44:  feeling was in me & I must either laugh or get away, or I have to give
45:  way to it. It’s myself I’m angry with you know eh?
46: 
47:  ^My little unreadable had bought me a pepper pot & a mustard pot for
48:  two pence. This letter doesn’t want an answer please. I’m not
49:  going to let any one know I’m in town, & I’m going to work so
50:  splendidly here in my little room. Good bye brother. Don’t write,
51:  except just a card when you want to unreadable^
52: 
53:  1
54:  Far away, where the tempests play,
55:  Over the dreary seas,
56:  Sail or still, with a strong ^steady^ will,
57:  On-ward before the breeze.
58: 
59:  2
60:  On, onwards yet,
61:  Till our hearts forget
62:  The loves that we leave behind:
63:  Till the memories ?clear
64:  that thrill in our ear
65:  Flow past like the whistling wind.
66: 
67:  3
68:  Let them come, sweet
69:  thoughts of home,
70:  And voices we loved of old;
71:  What care we that sail a sea,
72:  And bound for a Land of Gold?
73: 
74:  4
75:  Treasures there are that are lovelier far,
76:  Than the flash of a maiden’s eye;
77:  Jewels bright as the purple light,
78:  That crimsons the evening sky;
79:  Crowns that gleam
80:  like a fairy dream,
81:  Th Treasure of price untold!
82:  And we, are bound for
83:  that charmed ground;
84:  We, sail for a land
85:  of Gold!
86: 
87:  I fear it’s too irregular to be put to any music. I don’t know who
88:  it’s by & I’m not sure whether I’ve not intro ^duced some
89:  variations!!^ I found it in a book when I was a little child unreadable.
90: 
91: 
92: 

Notation
The particular article by Swinburne cannot be established either. The poem quoted is a version of W.E. Littlewood's 'To the Land of Gold' in Loomis J. Campbell (ed.) (1880) Young Folks’ Book of Poetry Boston: Lee and Shepard Publishers.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/13
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	25 December 1887
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 131-2

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 25 December 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. This letter has been dated 1887 from content and place in the archival sequence. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888.

1:  Xmas morning
2: 
3:  I’ve just got your letter & photo. The sun is shining on the terrace
4:  out side my door. It is very cold but bright.
5: 
6:  Yes, you must get away from Sheffield. I have seen that for a long
7:  time, but only the person themselves can tell when the time has come.
8:  You have never tried to live utterly utterly alone, that is why you
9:  think it hard. There’s a time that comes when it begins ^(the living
10:  quite alone)^ of agony. One has to live through that & come out on the
11:  other side, & then one knows the blessings & uses of absolute solitude.
12:  Perhaps I should never have known it, I am sure I never should, if
13:  when I was very young I had not been made to go through it, no way of
14:  escape. Now, when the agony of loneliness comes on me I know it will
15:  pass when one’s powers of feeling are worn out, & peace comes
16:  afterwards.
17: 
18:  I wish you could be quite utterly alone for some four months, & come
19:  out on the other side. Of course it doesn’t do to keep on too long
20:  because one gets at last a feeling of deadness, as if one had gone to
21:  sleep. Death will be like that. Yet one can work. You must get away
22:  somewhere where there is sunshine & warmth. Are you going with Barnes
23:  to Capri? Why don’t you go & stay there for three or four months
24:  quite by yourself & wither & agonize, & live through it & find your
25:  own feet? In the summer I shall be living in some little out of world
26:  village in Austrian Tyrol or South Germany & perhaps we might spend a
27:  few weeks together. Think this over. But one cannot advise another.
28:  Only this I know – you ought not to be in England. Sometimes the
29:  thought comes to me, what if you and Adams were to go to our new
30:  wonderful gold fields at the Cape? Splendid, new young life! Ah, it is
31:  so glorious. It is something that old world people cannot conceive of.
32:  Thousands of human creatures congregated together without poverty,
33:  without weakness; all alive, striving, hoping. I think it would help
34:  you. I cannot at the moment think of a quotation. Make one! The sun is
35:  shining here. Oh, you must get
35: 
36:  ^out of England & come into the sunshine,
37:  Edward.
38: 
39:  Olive^
40: 
41: 
42: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/14
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Tuesday 28 December 1887
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 132

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 28 December 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Alassio
2:  Tuesday night
3:  9 o’clock
4: 
5:  My dear Chips
6: 
7:  Will you please tell me what you think of doing I’ve been thinking
8:  of you all day. My s
9: 
10:  It’s bitterly cold here & the wind is whirling. I send my love to
11:  you. I wish so I knew more about you. Isn’t life a funny thing; &
12:  this gnawing hunger at our hearts. Perhaps it is through this hunger
13:  that the race grows, it drives us on & on, to seek a somewhat better
14:  than we ever can reach. But so we keep growing. I wish you were here
15:  some bright day in the sunshine & you & I go for a walk in the olive
16:  woods, & sit under the trees. I’m just writing this to you because I
17:  feel drawn to you.
18: 
19:  Olive
20:  Later. Sometimes you know I cannot believe that these chairs & tables
21:  & the walls & all the things about me are not alive. I love them so,
22:  inanimate things, & it seems to me they must love me. They do I think.
23:  I find such comfort from material substances sometimes when I am in
24:  very great agony. Lying quite flat on the ground with ones arms on it.
25:  The dear old earth, how can anyone hate it
26: 
27:  Just now I was walking up & down & I felt such an affectionate feeling
28:  to the walls & all the things in my room. I’ve stopped to write this
29:  to you, & now I’ll go on walking & thinking. I’m making a scene
30:  between a husband & wife.
31: 
32:  Olive
33: 
34:  I’m going to bed soon. I can hear the sea outside all the night. I
35:  wish I could comfort you quite. Are you ^feeling as if you could do
36:  writing work or practical work among other people
37:  Olive^
38: 
39: 
40: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/15
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 8 January 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 133

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 8 January 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Sante Croci
2:  Alassio
3:  Sunday morning
4: 
5:  I’ve come up here. It’s a little ruined chapel on a point sticking
6:  out into the sea. Oh Edward, I wish you could see this blue blue sea &
7:  the faraway mountains with the snow upon them! It is perfectly
8:  solitary up here. There are olive trees about & an old Roman Road
9:  leads up to it. There isn’t a sound but sometimes a large fly flying
10:  about, & the sea so far down below one can barely hear it.
11: 
12:  Yesterday some of the women at the hotel laughed at my clothes & said
13:  at lunch that some people were too poor to afford proper dresses &c &c.
14:  I cried after I came out & I’m afraid they heard me, so I
15:  couldn’t face them again today, so I got the waiter to give me
16:  something to eat & came up here. It’s so lovely. I like it best of
17:  all places in the world, except a farm where I lived in Africa. I
18:  don’t know why this spot helps me so. I come here with all my
19:  troubles small & large, & they go away. I’m not going back to the
20:  town till late in the night & I’ve brought my papers to write. Oh
21:  was there ever anything so glorious as this blue Mediterranean!
22: 
23:  //I got your letter this morning just before I came out. I’m so glad
24:  it’s so well with you. You must go to Capri. How nice if I could
25:  think when I looked across the blue water that you were down there.
26: 
27:  I am getting on with my novel, but very slowly. My nervous system is
28:  shattered, so that when I put pressure on it, even under my own hand,
29:  it gives. It will be a good book if ever it is done – if ever.
30: 
31:  //You know the air is clear today almost like in Africa. There is a
32:  little town on the hills about 20 miles away and I can see it quite
33:  distinctly. There is such joy to me in looking far. Oh, isn’t it
34:  nice to be out in the open & it doesn’t matter what you wear or
35:  anything. There’s such a pretty little longlegged fly walking all
36:  over my paper.
37: 
38:  //I shall be glad when the song book is ready. Have you got many of
39:  Lowells in? I wish so much I had thought of reminding you of some of his
40: 
41:  Give my love to George Adams. There is always something so beautiful
42:  to me in the thought of a new little life coming into the world.
43:  Isn’t it funny I never can see anything ludicrous or unlovely in it
44:  all. The first time I saw a birth it was a halfcast prostitute at the
45:  Cape, who had lain down in her labour behind a hedge. None of the Boer
46:  women or black women would go near her, & I helped ^& an old black man!^
47:  It was so wonderful & beautiful to see that little new life coming out
48:  under a blue sky just like this, & a little older child of ^the
49:  woman’s,^ of two years old, sat watching. I often wonder what has
50:  become of that little baby I brought into the world!
51: 
52:  Goodbye, my dear old comrade.
53:  Olive Schreiner
54: 
55:  You’ll be sure to give my love to G Adams & his wife. Tell me how it
56:  goes with you all. I sent the Allegory this morning before I came out.
57:  It’s the one in MS. ^Send them back.^
58: 
59: 
60: 

Notation
The novel Schreiner is 'getting on with' is From Man to Man. The allegory she sent to Carpenter cannot be established. The 'song book' referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1888) Chants of Labour London: Swan Sonnenschein. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/16
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	12 March 1888
Address From	na
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 12 March 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Yes, no love would be worth anything that needed cultivating. The true
2:  love is that which you fight against; struggle against, year after
3:  year, & which is always there. Which absence makes stronger. As you
4:  see mountain most clearly when you are a long way off from it.
5: 
6:  Don’t read this if you don’t mean to go & see Alice some day. But
7:  read it if you do as it will give you a little idea of the kind of
8:  person she is.
9: 
10:  I have been a walk along the road to the point in the wind & rain.
11:  Splendid. If we had a house here it would be nice to have little Louie
12:  Adams here & let her sit in the sun. We are having all this & other
13:  people aren’t. But they wouldn’t have it anymore if we didn’t!
14: 
15:  Olive
16: 
17:  Goodnight, my big brother
18:  Your little
19:  Donkey.
20: 
21:  It’s been pouring rain here all day. I want you so much to know &
22:  love great women of the kind that would help you. ^She is a brave
23:  strong little soul.^
24: 
25: 
26: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/17
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1 April 1888
Address From	Hotel Oxford et Cambridge, Rue d?Alger, Place-Vend?me, Paris, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 153-4

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 1 April 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hotel Oxford et Cambridge
2:  Rue d’Alger
3:  Paris
4: 
5:  No, dear old man, it’s not men that trouble me its middle class
6:  women that are so hard to understand & reconcile with a ^good^ God: I
7:  believe it can be done though!!! & will be by me mentally at last.
8:  I’ve found a nice poor little unreadable artist, a girl with nothing
9:  to live on, & we are going to see eachother every day. She’s very
10:  like my small Alice very much. I’m going to have Alice come to me
11:  for her Easter Holidays & take her up the Rhine & I’m going to look
12:  for a little village to settle down in for Spring & summer. Will you
13:  tell me what you think of my Prelude now, if it doesn’t come in the
14:  way of your work to read it, & send it on to Mrs Brown, 66 Bank Parade,
15:  Burnly as soon as you’ve done You’re a great fool if you don’t
16:  see that it’s nice. I’ll love to see George Adam’s little one.
17: 
18:  P I’m so anxious for more Towards Democracy. The little bit in W.P.P.
19:  was quite up to mark.
20: 
21:  I’ve got a little Socialist dream but you’ll all say again it’s
22:  not up to mark because it’s all about God. How can I help writing
23:  about God when there’s nothing else in heaven or earth that I love &
24:  cling to If anyone can give me another name for him ^it^ I’ll use it.
25:  I went to the morgue the other day & saw three of our brothers sitting
26:  there on the marble slabs. I should have gone mad if I hadn’t
27:  realized that they were only little drops of it divided & spilt for a
28:  while to be taken up again, & pass into it. I wanted so to go behind &
29:  wash them & dress them & lay them out & kiss them & put flowers by
30:  them. I shall never go again because I can’t do anything. Do you
31:  know the people were standing there & laughing.
32: 
33:  //One ^of the three a^ young man had a pure white shirt cuff with a gold
34:  stud in it which he fastened in the morning. The other was a man a
35:  working man of 45 or 50 with beautiful delicate features: (he had been
36:  hungry & cold so often you could see that in the face) but there was
37:  such a beautiful smile on them, the face lighted up as I’ve never
38:  seen a dead face – "This is rest at last!" I couldn’t look at the
39:  third one. Edward, isn’t it strange that we run each other down like
40:  that that we can’t make life worth living to each other? I wonder if
41:  people will believe in two thousand years time in that morgue & the
42:  three men sitting there & the people laughing. Don’t trouble to
43:  write except a card to say you’ve got Prelude.
44: 
45:  Yours,
46:  Olive
47: 
48: 
49: 

Notation
Schreiner's 'little socialist dream' is 'The sunlight lay across my bed'. The 'Prelude' mentioned appears in From Man to Man. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; and the 'little bit' of it appearing in the Women’s Penny Paper, edited by Henrietta Muller, is: Edward Carpenter "The Mother to Her Daughter" vol 1 no 21, 16 March 1889, pp.6-7. Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/18
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday 5 April 1888
Address From	Hotel Westminster, Bordighera, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 138-9

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 5 April 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The letter is on printed headed notepaper.

1:  Hotel Westminster
2:  Bordighera
3:  Italie
4:  Wednesday night
5:  11: 30
6: 
7:  Do you see where I am? When I got to B Ventimiglia I found there f was
8:  no train on to Alassio till 3.40 in the morning. I wandered about for
9:  a little time, then an old gentleman, a clergy man who I think must be
10:  George MacDonald, who was with a daughter & two young men, met me. He
11:  evidently thought I was one of those "unhappy women from Monte Carlo".
12:  There is no hotel I know of in Ventimiglia, but I knew the name of the
13:  Westminster here. He said I could come with them in their carriage
14:  here, but the horror they all seemed to feel to me, & his awful fear
15:  lest one of the young men should walk here with me, was funny. Oh, Ach,
16:  my poor sisters, when will this pass away!
17: 
18:  It’s when I think of these women Edward that I feel I am a woman, &
19:  I’m glad I am a woman so that I may fight & there may be none of us
20:  any more at last. That is really the work of my life. You will see
21:  some day when my book is done! You know that is what I have lived for;
22:  there the strange, terrible fascination those women’s faces have for
23:  me, eating into my heart in horror & pity, no one seems to feel to
24:  them as I do.
25: 
26:  //I saw those three red lights go away behind your train! Edward, I
27:  love you so, dear, you have entered right into my heart. It’s so
28:  quiet here now. You are just unreadable I’m going on by the first
29:  train in the morning. The old clergy man wouldn’t shake hands with
30:  me though he let me drive with them in their carriage. I didn’t mind
31:  it at all It was rather a nice experience.
32: 
33:  //You must write me one word and tell me about your plans.
34: 
35:  Please remember me to the ?Casigs. Mrs C is a very nice kindly woman &
36:  I feel very kindly to him. I can’t bear to think you are going away.
37:  You don’t know how I’ve been feeling you near me all the while
38:  you’ve been on the Riviera.
39: 
40:  Goodnight, my brother.
41:  Your Donkey
42: 
43:  It was very nice to-day. I enjoyed it so much, it’s done me good.
44:  The music was nice. You don’t know how much music is to me. I
45:  don’t suppose it would cost much more if you went past Alassio.
46: 
47: 
48: 

Notation
'When my book is done' refers to From Man to Man. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/19
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	6 April 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 6 April 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Alassio
2: 
3:  Lady Manchester & Mrs ?Senston asked me to go out with them & I’ve
4:  come back feeling so sad. You know the feeling when you’ve been with
5:  people who are asleep & ^whom^ nothing will ever wake.
6: 
7:  //I send you Miss Müllers letter because it throws a little light on
8:  the question we talked about when you were here unreadable. I felt
9:  unreadable near you all day yesterday, though we didn’t talk
10:  unreadable Do you know just being near people sometimes rests me so.
11:  Does the love thing go on well? Is it finished?
12: 
13:  Olive
14: 
15:  ^This might be interesting to you Olive^
16: 
17: 
18: 

Notation
Schreiner’s final insertion is written on a letter to her from Henrietta Müller at 58 Cadogan Place, London, as follows:

I am writing to Mrs. Philpot about "Compromise." I enclose K.P’s letter. You can destroy it.

I have ?decided that the Club is a piteous failure. The men lay down the law, the women ?resent in silence and submit in silence – There is no ?debate at all –

Do not be afraid of me, I never talk of my friends to my friends. be at rest. For a very long time it will be unreadable the less men have to do with women the better for women, The men can’t keep putting swaddling clothes onto women whenever they come near them, and it is safest & best to let them alone.

Men are like gardeners who have nailed & pruned & clipt women into fantastic shapes like this [a little stylised sketch of a tree]

They can’t help it, & therefore the only chance for a woman to find out what her own shape is, is for her to grow alone, according to her own sweet will, under the open ske of Heaven. There she may flourish like a green bay tree, & bring forth fruit.

I send you my dream it is very like your "Dreams" Dearest Olive – you do not know how often, how lovingly I think of you.

Etta

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/20
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	12 April 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 139

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 12 April 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Alassio
2: 
3:  This is a word to greet you in London, if indeed you have left the
4:  Riviera. I feel as if you had – so I suppose you have.
5: 
6:  You ought to have stayed to see the Fords. I am sure, just now, you
7:  need more of woman’s society than man’s, & such a woman as
8:  Isabella would have been very good as your companion.
9: 
10:  I have nothing to tell me of you myself. The Swills asked me to go out
11:  with them this afternoon but I’ve had enough of Lords & Ladies for
12:  the present & am going to write.
13: 
14:  //Do you ever have days that are so peace-ful, as if a great hand were
15:  opened over you & all were so calm under it? I feel like that today.
16: 
17:  We If you ever see my friend & helper Karl Pearson, you will tell me.
18:  But it’s not likely you ever will. I often wonder whether there
19:  might be any bridge built by which you might cross over to each other;
20:  he blaspheming against the emotions & the instinctive reason; you
21:  against the intellect & the conscious reason; you are both wrong, but
22:  I wonder whether it would be possible for you to understand eachother
23:  & teach each other! I guess not.
24: 
25:  He is living now at West View, Christchurch, Hampstead.
26: 
27:  If you feel it no burden will you write sometimes & tell me about your
28:  feelings & life? I hope you will stay some time in London, & not go up
29:  to Sheffield. But perhaps that is just where you feel you ought to be.
30:  As I felt last year that I had to go back to England for six months
31:  – I couldn’t say why.
32: 
33:  Now it is all dead. I have no need ever to return there. It is like
34:  having your last look at the face of a corps.
35: 
36:  I shall leave this about the first of May & get on as quickly as I can
37:  to Tyrol.
38: 
39:  You must give yourself entirely up to your work, Edward. When you are
40:  helping one man or woman you help that one only; when you work you
41:  help many in the present & also in the far future. Since you told me I
42:  have so often thought of poor old ?Pasy bursting into tears because we
43:  all have to live alone.
44: 
45:  Goodbye, my brother.
46:  Olive
47:  ^
48:  If you should wish to see Alice Corthorn her address is 69 Chancery Lane,
49:  but I think it would be a waste of time, simply shedding blood for
50:  nothing, you would never likely get to know her really well, & she
51:  would not be helpful to you in the way a woman like Isabella might be.
52: 
53:  Olive^
54: 
55: 
56: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/21
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Monday 16 April 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 139

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 16 April 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Alassio
2:  Monday
3: 
4:  I got your letter from Paris. It’s very unkind of you always to
5:  remember that I drove in a cab with luggage round Paris! You mustn’t
6:  hate us women so much (though I do it myself!)
7: 
8:  I won’t be a woman in a couple of years. I began to be one when I was
9:  only ten so I dare say I will leave off being one in about two or
10:  perhaps three more, & then you’ll think I am a man, all of you, won’t
11:  you? Karl Pearson & every one, & will be comrades with me!
12: 
13:  I feel somehow sorry about the Fords. Did you do it out of perversity
14: 
15:  Edward, you must write much. Make your life consist in that. You & I
16:  must have no personality. We must die while yet we live.
17: 
18:  I don’t know if Ellis will come at all. His mother & two sisters have
19:  it ^fever^. The first mother is dangerously ill, "sinking" he writes me.
20:  I am in painful doubt as to whether Ellis ought to come at all.
21:  Whether it will be happiest for him. When two people are friends & the
22:  one loves the other with a love that other
23: 
24:  ^cannot return, is it not better for them never to meet? Yet I, if I
25:  loved a person, would so much rather see them than not see them even
26:  if they hated me.
27: 
28:  Olive^
29: 
30:  ^Write to me only when you ?turn to me. We must work, Edward, & every
31:  time our heart pains us work till the agony gets still. Love to George
32:  & his wife & child. ^
33: 
34:  OS
35: 
36:  It’s possible I may again be in the winter Riviera next winter
37: 
38: 
39: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/22
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: 1887 ; Before End: 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 1887, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888. This letter has been dated accordingly, as content indicates Schreiner was in Italy or perhaps France.

1:  Is there no possibility of your coming to see me for a time in the
2:  summer or autumn. I should of course tell you if I didn’t want you
3:  when you wrote to say you were coming. You are helpful & pleasant to
4:  me. ^And I’m unpleasant but not unhealthful for you!!!^ It would be
5:  something to look forward to. I had it sorely in my heart to ask you
6:  to meet me at Geneva, & go on to Venice with me. But just now you have
7:  too many problems to work out & need to be left alone. You wouldn’t
8:  have come.
9: 
10:  Good bye, Edward.
11:  Send me your socialist group
12: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/23
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 23 April 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To	Millthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 140

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 23 April 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date of this letter has been derived from the postmark on an attached envelope, while the address it was sent to is on its front.

1:  Alassio
2:  Sunday night
3: 
4:  Dear Brother
5: 
6:  I’ve got your letter. Yes, I know how you feel in England, that
7:  weight & pressure on the top of one’s head & on one’s whole body,
8:  one doesn’t know why. George Eliot felt the same you know. All
9:  artistic natures do, we can’t work in England.
10: 
11:  During the next ten years you ought to do your best literary work &
12:  you must. It will take you six or eight months at least for you to
13:  work yourself free from all the little bonds. You must cut yourself
14:  free from them resolutely. It is the terrible condition of our
15:  labouring for others that some times we must seem to fight against
16:  them. It is the truth that has been revealed to me during the last two
17:  years, that a point is reached ^more easily than people think^ when
18:  human creatures need to be taught selfishness! That Whenever a man is
19:  in danger of braking down his own little individual particle, unless
20:  for some great high end, he commits murder. He sins against all his
21:  fellows whom he can only serve while he is whole.
22: 
23:  Edward, Isabella Ford has been here for one night. She’s a great,
24:  true, noble hearted woman. If Karl Pearson loved her I would see him
25:  turn to her without a doubt & without a fear.
26: 
27:  I am glad you want to see my little Alice if it did not cost you much.
28: 
29:  Goodbye.
30:  Olive.
31: 
32:  I am going to Venice on Tues the 1st of May I think perhaps. I’ll
33:  see the Fords for a day or so.
34: 
35: 
36: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/24
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	11 June 1888
Address From	na
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 140-1

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 11 June 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  My dear old Brother
2: 
3:  I’ve not written to you because I’ve had nothing to say.
4: 
5:  It joys me to know that things go well with thee. Best greetings to
6:  Adams & the Fords &c.
7: 
8:  I’ve not been physically up to going to Africa or Riviera, so I’m
9:  taking a tiny unfinished cottage at Harpenden, a little village 27
10:  miles from London, live by my-self without servants. I think it will
11:  be lovely.
12: 
13:  The ?Leycesters, those people who had the room next to mine at Alassio
14:  were very kind to me. They met me at Calais very ill, & brought me on
15:  with them. Their kindness to me that day was something I can never
16:  forget. I don’t think I should ever have reached London without them.
17:  She’s a splendid woman.
18: 
19:  I haven’t seen or even heard the names of any of the people I used
20:  to know, except Miss Müller & Alice Corthorn, & Ellis I’ve seen
21:  once for a few minutes. All the people I’ve seen have been new. I
22:  think that’s all my news. I expect to like Harpenden as much as
23:  Alassio. No one is ever to come & see me there. Except one girl who is
24:  very lonely.
25: 
26:  It’s funny when one’s faith in human friendship dies. One says it
27:  hasn’t, but one knows it has sometimes.
28: 
29:  I love all humans & believe that each to ^in^ him or herself is noble &
30:  good & means well. I believe the worse people in their heart of hearts
31:  do that; they are only blind, but one soul shall never understand
32:  another, the Almighty hath walled us round.
33: 
34:  How does your work go, E. C? That is really a thing that shall not
35:  pass away. Through impersonal work one soul can, a little, reach
36:  others, but ^though^ personally it can’t.
37: 
38:  Goodbye. Don’t trouble to write, dear Brother, but let me soon see a
39:  book of yours, something that shall more satisfy me as being the
40:  expression of your genius than anything else you have done. Don’t
41:  let absorption in individuals take away your power of work. You have
42:  had enough of that. You must stand alone; though your work in life is
43:  to give expression to your perception of the beauty of all Union, yet
44:  you must stand calmly apart to express it. I wish you could marry;
45:  marriage gives no soul the Union and strength we dream of, but in your
46:  case it would be a calming, restgiving relation.
47: 
48:  Olive
49: 
50: 
51: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/25
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 16 July 1888
Address From	Harpenden, Hertfordshire
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 16 July 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. .

1:  Harpenden
2:  Sunday afternoon
3:  Pouring rain
4:  I sit here alone
5: 
6:  Dear E.C.
7: 
8:  Maggie Harkness was here the other day & she said that Mrs Besant told
9:  her once that whenever she was tired & weary she read nothing but
10:  "you", that yours were the only books that helped her. Somehow I like
11:  so much to think of her finding help from you, she has so much hard
12:  fighting to do. Is it nice to you too?
13: 
14:  I had something else to say but I can’t remember it now. Will you
15:  please let me know if you are lecturing any-where in London, & when,
16:  that I may come & see ^hear^ you. I don’t care about your coming to
17:  see me, dear old brother. I only care about ^seeing^ the one or two
18:  people who really need me like unreadable some women. The Custom is
19:  splendid. The little ending goes deep, very deep, eh?
20: 
21:  Good-bye
22:  Your tired old sister
23:  Olive
24: 
25: 
26: 

Notation
The 'Custom' referred to cannot be traced

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/26
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	20 July 1888
Address From	Harpenden, Hertfordshire
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 20 July 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Harpenden from mid June to the end of September 1888.

1:  Dear EC.
2: 
3:  I shall be going down to Surrey to look for a tiny cottage at Dorking
4:  or Woking or some such place. If I am early in the morning to St
5:  Pancras could you perhaps meet me there? We might go & have lunch
6:  together somewhere, & I might then go on my way? Which days would you
7:  be free? Most days? Because I can’t arrange long before on account
8:  of perhaps not being up to it when the time comes.
9: 
10:  O.S.
11: 
12:  You would love Mrs Bland very much. She’s quite genuine. She wants
13:  to come again & bring all her children. I haven’t told anyone you
14:  were here except Alice & she has orders not to mention it. Do you know,
15:  I don’t feel a bit that horror of London now I know you are there?
16: 
17: 
18: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/27
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	11 November 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 143

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 11 November 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888.

1:  Thou ?wert right & not right about the article. I should not have
2:  mentioned unreadable ^a^ friend’s name. I’ve tried three times to
3:  write of Englands Ideal & I found I couldn’t. There seems to me
4:  something immodest in praising your own work, & I so entirely
5:  appropriate my friends’ writings that I can never write of them.
6:  However I lent Mrs Wilson the Ethic of Free thought which she had not
7:  seen, & pointed out to her the great value of it &c his & how Mrs
8:  Caird had simple built up on his ideas. I quite agree with all she
9:  says. She is now at Lugano ordered there by the Doctor. I have written
10:  to ask her to come on here if she can for a few days, that I may love
11:  her a little.
12: 
13:  I hope ^unreadable^ George is better. It must have been nice to be with
14:  him when he was not well, & take care of him.
15: 
16:  Good bye.
17: 
18:  I think I am conquering. Things look very grey, even the sky & sea
19:  don’t seem as bright coloured as they used to be last year, but
20:  every thing is very peace-ful ^& I am happy.^ I saw at Mrs Casey’s a
21:  portrait of a young man, & then I realized or rather saw, what I had
22:  long known; how the older man is a residue left after much struggling,
23:  not simply a thing so born.
24: 
25:  My dear little Alice is working hard. I have got her to resolve to be
26:  a doctor. I am going to try to get her out here in the spring. You
27:  never saw the best of her. Isn’t Ellis’s Ibsen ^?vol^ splendid!
28: 
29:  I heard before I left England that Mr Pearson had been dangerously ill
30:  with bronchitis on the continent; & three people who saw him after his
31:  return said he looked ill & pale, & had a cough. If it should chance
32:  that you hear anything of his health you might let me know but don’t
33:  trouble about it?
34: 
35:  O.S.
36: 
37:  ^I may be going to Mentone in a couple of months time, but I fancy
38:  it’s not easy to live so cheaply there as here is.^
39: 

Notation
Schreiner's article which Carpenter was 'right and not right' about cannot be established. The books referred to are: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal, and other papers on social subjects London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co.; Karl Pearson (1888) The Ethic of Freethought: A Selection of essays and lectures London: T. Fisher Unwin. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/28
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Postcard
Letter Date	1 December 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To	Millthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 1 December 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner postcard, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date is provided by the postmark on this postcard, while the address it was sent to is on its front.

1:  The Doctor has ordered me to Mentone. Address Poste Restante there if
2:  you need to write. I’ve had low fever: Oh Edward, I’m so happy
3:  such a beautiful thing has happened to me. A letter I’ve been
4:  waiting for for two years from a woman has come. Love to George Adams
5:  & you. I wish you could all come to the sunshine.
6:  Olive
7: 
8: 
9: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/29
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	15 December 1888
Address From	Hotel du Pavillon, Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 143-4

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 15 December 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hotel du Pavillon
2:  Mentone
3: 
4:  Dear Edward Carpenter,
5: 
6:  Will you please send me back Mrs Bland’s letter. You will forgive me
7:  I know for having spoken to her of you; but indeed it was not my fault.
8:  A dear old Swede has just been to say goodbye to me. Such a beautiful
9:  childlike nature, a huge strong man with the pure heart of a little
10:  child. He wanted me to marry him. Edward, life is very funny isn’t
11:  it? We are all so thirsty, & there is plenty of water, & the water all
12:  goes wrong! I am glad your civilization article will soon be out.
13: 
14:  I’m glad Adams gets on with his painting.
15: 
16:  All good be with you all. Isn’t this place beautiful.
17: 
18:  I shall be quite alone now in this big house with only a Russian who
19:  can’t speak a word of English. Do you know I should like to go to
20:  Sweden. I love those simple child natures so, the Swedish people, have
21:  a somewhat of the child & nature in them that others have lost.
22: 
23:  All strength & joy be with you, dear old poet.
24:  Olive
25: 
26:  A happy Xmas to you all.
27:  OS
28: 
29: 
30: 

Notation
Carpenter's 'civilization article' is: Edward Carpenter (n.d.) Cruelties of Civilization London: Reeves. It later appeared as Edward Carpenter (1889) 'Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure' Pioneer January 1889. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/30
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 17 December 1888
Address From	Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 144

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 17 December 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Mentone
2:  Sunday
3: 
4:  Dear Ed’ard
5: 
6:  Yes it’s very beautiful here. I went for a walk this afternoon to
7:  that other far point beyond your end of Mentone; where the break the
8:  stones & the cliffs are so bright. Do you know I shouldn’t have
9:  liked to stay in your part, those hotels are so grand & so many of
10:  them, you would like it better here, & there’s so much room, & you
11:  know those great mountain peaks are looking down at you even when you
12:  are asleep.
13: 
14:  //Yes, it would be a splendid plan to print them in a little cheap
15:  book, but isn’t it possible to get them printed in American or
16:  English magazines first, & get paid for them? See my calculating, mean,
17:  & money making spirit! You are well known now. You ought to get paid.
18: 
19:  I’m glad you are not cross with me about Mrs Bland. If I could tell
20:  you about her you would love her so! It’s not that she does a hard
21:  thing. All of the "us" can do that; but then we break down in health
22:  like Mrs Wilson & some others, but she goes on so sweetly & strongly
23:  it seems as if she must be drawing her strength from some source that
24:  no one sees.
25: 
26:  Thank You mustn’t mind if you’ve no time to give her when you are
27:  in town. I mean she’s one who understands how ones heart goes out
28:  much further than one’s hands can reach in this short life.
29: 
30:  I am all alone in this big house now with no one but a Russian who
31:  doesn’t speak a word of English but I’m not lonely. I’ve got a
32:  room just overlooking the sea. Thankyou for telling me about your poet
33:  friend. I’m glad you’re going to town to lecture a bit.
34: 
35:  I am coming back to England in May to go into the Endle Street
36:  Hospital where I was before, to finish my course in midwifery. I shall
37:  not be a common nurse then, you are to know, I shall be a real midwife
38:  licensed by the College of Physicians! I shall think no end of myself!
39:  I want to do some material work for a little time, & not think, & it
40:  is very beautiful to me to work with those mothers & little babies,
41:  you can’t think how beautiful. Then I shall always have a means to
42:  earning my living & being independent of my brain. It ought to be so
43:  with every one. Don’t mention my coming yet to any one. After my
44:  three months are over I should like must to come & stay a bit with you
45:  folk in August. I might take a room in Sheffield near the Adams’s be
46:  & deliver a few women while I’m there! & come out to Mill Thorp with
47:  them often. I want to see a bit more of those North Country people
48:  before I go to the Cape.
49: 
50:  Yes, it’s all very good. She writes me he is coming to spend his
51:  Xmas holidays with her & the children & that they are closely united,
52:  & all very happy. This is quite good. I am going to dedicate my book
53:  to them together when it is done.
54: 
55:  Reddy writes like you only with the best part of you left out. It’s
56:  singular how some minds can permeate others.
57: 
58:  I wish some of you people were coming to the Riviera this spring. The
59:  weather is just too lovely for words. We’ve had some days of rain &
60:  cold, but even then it was beautiful. Now today the sky is that
61:  perfect pale blue, that one feels, "This is Heaven." Even the sea here
62:  has a particularly nice sound. The rocks are so uneven that they break
63:  in different ways making a complex sound quite different from that
64:  suck-suck of a wave on a smooth beach. I wonder if ever noticed the
65:  difference, & how much more soothing this kind of noise is.
66: 
67:  The Swede went away yesterday morning at six o’clock. He said I had
68:  brought "something of the nature" into his life & I think he was glad
69:  to have met me, so it’s all right. I can’t feel very sorry for
70:  anyone who loves anything, it seems to me such a great good. It’s
71:  the person who is so that the other can love them who has to be
72:  thanked. Remember I’m coming to Sheffield in August!!
73: 
74:  Olive
75: 
76:  ^I’m learning to make pots here, real pots. Think how much grander
77:  that is than your common old sandals! I’m going to make you a tea
78:  pot though you don’t drink tea!! It’ll do for show you know.^
79: 
80: 
81: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/31
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	31 December 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 31 December 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888.

1:  Old year’s night
2: 
3:  Dear EC
4: 
5:  I send you a cutting from Stephen’s article on unreadable in an old
6:  number of the Nineteenth Cen. It’s all so lovely you ought to read
7:  it. I’ve never seen that side of the question so deliciously put,
8:  it’s as if one of us were taking off the other side. It was torn up
9:  when I got it or I’d send you the whole. He adviseds that that the
10:  rich boycott those wicked poor unreadable not giving any more to their
11:  hospitals &c, &c & then what would the poor do!! That it would be the
12:  best thing that could happen to them if the rich didn’t throw them
13:  any more sops, & that there would soon be no rich he doesn’t for a
14:  moment see!! It’s so lovely. Don’t trouble to answer this, it just
15:  came into my head to send it as I was reading it. Never write me duty
16:  letters.
17: 
18:  I hope you’ll have a good time in London in Feb. We have terrible
19:  weather here just now, this afternoon the waves wild & roaring, & one
20:  can’t see more than a foot or two, but we’ve had such fine weather
21:  ^ we mustn’t complain. It’s all arranged for my going to the Cape
22:  in September, money in bank. Can you think how glad I am. All good be
23:  with you a glad new year. Its going to be for me a year of more work
24:  than I ever did before.
25:  Olive.^
26: 
27:  I send you a pamphlet. To me it is full of that greatly to be prized,
28:  rare truth loving spirit that constitutes his greatness, & which has
29:  made him so greatly helpful to me in all my weaker moment. I am well
30:  satisfied now Dost thou know the old story – "While the child was
31:  yet alive I fasted & wept: for I said, "Who can tell – " I have
32:  always understood David.
33: 
34:  Do you think Mrs Wilson was quite right in that Mrs Parson’s affair?
35:  My fear always is that in the end Mrs Beasant may take to temporizing.
36:  She lacks that fine spiritual inspiration which Mrs Wilson has.
37: 
38:  Olive
39: 
40:  The waves are making such a noise just out of my window. I must get up
41:  & put some more wood in the fire
42: 
43: 
44: 

Notation
The article by 'old Stephen' is likely to be: Leslie Stephen "Belief and Conduct" Nineteenth Century 24 September 1888 pp.372-89. The pamphlet Schreiner sent to Carpenter cannot be established.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/32
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: December 1888 ; Before End: March 1889
Address From	Hotel du Pavillon, Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 143

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, December 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner stayed in the Hotel du Pavillon from mid December 1888 to mid March 1889.

1:  Please return my precious letter to me. I send it you because I want
2:  you so much realy to know her.
3: 
4:  I was ordered here by Doctor because I had low fever at Alassio.
5: 
6:  I’m better. Isn’t this a lovely place!!! No wonder you didn’t
7:  like Alassio. It’s nothing to this. I’m staying in a quiet hotel
8:  quite out of the town, it’s the other end from where you stayed. So
9:  lovely & quiet. I’m the only person in this big house & it’s all
10:  so lovely.
11: 
12:  I’ll send you the woman’s ^penny^ paper with my two little dreams.
13:  Glad "Civilization" is going to be published.
14: 
15:  Sometimes feel as though I should never do any more real work in the
16:  world - but it doesn’t matter.
17: 
18:  I’m hoping my little Alice will come a bit in the Spring. It’s too
19:  beautiful here for any words. The sea & sky are more perfect than I
20:  ever knew them.
21: 
22:  Goodbye.
23:  Olive
24: 
25:  Hotel du Pavillon
26:  Mentone
27: 

Notation
The two allegories in particular were published in the The Women’s Penny Paper, edited by Henrietta Muller, a friend of Schreiner's met at the Men and Women's Club. These were: See: "I Thought I Stood" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 7, 8 December 1888, p.1; "Once More I Stood" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 8, 15 December 1888, p1; and "Life's Gifts" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 47, 14 September 1889, p.7. Civilization' refers to: Edward Carpenter (1889) Civilization: Its Cause and Cure London: Swan Sonnenschein. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/33
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 1888
Address From	Alassio, Italy
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 144-5

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 1888, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The year has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Alassio from late October 1887 to February 1888 and from early April to May 1888, where she met and corresponded with Mary Drew in the early part of 1888.

1:  Sunday night
2: 
3:  My dear Edward,
4: 
5:  I was glad to get your letter. You must get away to the sunshine if
6:  you can. We’ve had rain here for three or four days but the sun is
7:  sure to come out soon. Today has been a day of great anxiety to me. I
8:  have told someone to telegraph tomorrow if any of our people are
9:  killed. but I don’t think it will go so far.
10: 
11:  I am working pretty well here. I cannot do very much in the day but
12:  what I do is good. I have just finished off a dream tonight. Mr
13:  Gladstone’s daughter said she would like to see it: when she has
14:  done with it I’ll tell her to send it to you. I am writing a long
15:  dream on socialism which I am going to publish in the Fortnightly. I
16:  think it will be good, but writing it nearly kills one with excitement.
17:  I am living quite alone here, never see or speak to anyone except
18:  about food at meal times. I shall stay here till summer then go to
19:  Venice for a few months & return here next winter. Give my love to
20:  George Adams. I hope your soul grows strong.
21: 
22:  If you should see Karl Pearson will you write and tell me. If you
23:  should see him anywhere without speaking to him. I have not heard from
24:  anyone who has seen him for a very long time. You would never mention
25:  ^me to him if you met him? I am going to try & get my novel off my
26:  hands next year.^
27: 
28:  ^Rather a good published Fischer Unwin 26 Paternoster Square. If you
29:  can’t make arrangements with another you might go to him with the
30:  song book. Write to me soon if the spirit moves you. ^
31: 
32:  Goodbye my old Chips.
33:  Olive
34: 
35: 
36: 

Notation
The 'long dream on socialism' was in fact not published in the Fortnightly Review because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/34
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	10 January 1889
Address From	Hotel du Pavillon, Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 146-7

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 10 January 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hotel du Pavillon
2:  Mentone
3: 
4:  Thank you, dear old Edward, for your letter. Thank you for telling me
5:  you had seen my friend ^Karl Pearson.^ I knew you would love him if ever
6:  you met: the nature is rarely pure & truth loving. When you have met
7:  him several times you will find you have gained something from him. I
8:  feel if justice were done he would have a share in any praise my work
9:  might have, even in the little dreams & allegories, that seem so
10:  intensely unlike him, & which he might even laugh at. I work better
11:  because I have known him. I wish sometimes I could just come & take
12:  his hand for a moment & sit & talk over those matters that interest us,
13:  or better still sit & say nothing at all. It might be if I were a man,
14:  but I shall never be that - eh? Whatever comes never that. Well, the
15:  compensation comes to me so; that being a woman I can reach other
16:  women where no man could reach them. A growing tenderness is in my
17:  heart for them. I shall never be a man & a brother among you men that
18:  I love so, but I have my work.
19: 
20:  Why do you not print some more poems? Have you sent any to ?reviewers
21:  magazines? Next month there will appear in the Fortnightly a little
22:  allegory of mine you will like very much. It is socialistic. It’s
23:  not my long one, my best beloved; that will appear bye & bye. I am
24:  working & you know how happy that makes one. I have given your
25:  greetings to all the rocks & sea & sky. To-day they are all grey & yet
26:  so sweet & beloved. I don’t think nature seemed so alive to me, when
27:  I was a child, even, as it does here. I can’t
28: 
29:  //I know so well how one gets overrun when one comes to London;
30:  that’s the penalty one pays for being loved - & the fog makes it
31:  worse!!!
32: 
33:  I’ve had great pleasure, the Roberts’ came here yesterday, & they
34:  are coming on Sunday to stay for a few days. I am going out to buy a
35:  little tea-service for them, to put in their room as a surprise with
36:  some flowers.
37: 
38:  Don’t trouble to answer this. Send me anything you write.
39: 
40:  Deepest thanks my dear brother.
41:  Olive
42: 
43:  I’m getting on so splendidly with my work.
44:  ^I’m so glad you love him, Edward, it’s so beautiful to me when
45:  anybody loves him.^
46: 
47: 
48: 

Notation
The 'socialistic' allegory was in fact not published in the Fortnightly Review because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431. . Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/35
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	21 January 1889
Address From	Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 147

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 21 January 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Mentone
2: 
3:  My dear old Edward
4: 
5:  You don’t know how precious your last letter has been to me. You can’t
6:  understand.
7: 
8:  I’ve read your paper in Pioneer. I like it best about the nakedness,
9:  but I like all, except where you talk against the intellect. You do
10:  understand, my Ed’ard, that the same joy and peace comes to my little
11:  soul from reading Spencers First Principles or Mills Logic or even
12:  Gibbons Decline & Fall that comes to it from looking at a sunset
13:  behind these tall mountains. God can and does reveal himself through
14:  the intellect as through nature, through the reason of the man as in
15:  the blowing of the wind. Thou darest no more blaspheme against the
16:  intellect than another dare against nature.
17: 
18:  What you, who have been over taught, are striking at, is that wretched
19:  choking of the intellect that goes on in schools & colleges, but we,
20:  people who have never been over fed like myself, we who have never
21:  been to school who have never been taught anything, we cannot feel as
22:  you do. You have been over fed. We are dying of hunger. That’s true
23:  about things coming to us when we don’t care any more. But then we
24:  can’t be said ever to have them. What we have gained is the power to
25:  do without them, the part of ourself which wanted them we kill slowly,
26:  & the benefit is that so much more is dead. This sounds sadder than I
27:  mean, but I think you
28:  understand.
29: 
30:  I would like to have heard the discussion at the "New Noah’s Ark." It
31:  will have been lovely I’m sure. Will you please send me all you write.
32:  If you ever should go to Mr Pearson’s again would you send me
33:  something out of his garden; pick it for yourself. You know my heart
34:  lives always in that little study in Hampstead; ^it is like a little
35:  chapel to me;^ it is all so beautiful to me. Now I know that he never
36:  needed ^wanted^ my friendship ^I can rest.^ It’s to me as if he was buried
37:  personally but so beautiful to know he’s alive & working ^impersonally.^
38:  All goes well and happily & me here. Such loving letters from my
39:  people rejoicing at my return to the Cape in August. It’s not a secret.
40:  I’ve told the Robertses. My hospital plan has to be given up, no room
41:  for me.
42: 
43:  I’m writing something very lovely. Edward, it isn’t really the
44:  intellect & nature that are at war, it’s the personal & impersonal.
45: 
46:  Your sister
47:  Olive
48: 
48:  ^I’ve got a beautiful likeness of Walt Whitman. I wonder if you would
49:  like to see it? I’ll give it you if you would value it. I value it, so
50:  I’d like to give it you.^
51: 

Notation
The 'very lovely' thing Schreiner was writing cannot be established. The references are to: Edward Carpenter (1889) 'Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure' Pioneer January 1889; Herbert Spencer (1862) First Principles London: Williams & Norgate; John Stuart Mill (1843) System of Logic London: Parker; Edward Gibbon (1776-1787) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire London: T. Cadell. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/36
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	31 January 1889
Address From	Hotel du Parc, Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 148

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 31 January 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Hotel du Parc
2:  Mentone
3: 
4:  Thank you, Edward, I know you write just for my sake. Thank you.
5: 
6:  You are entirely wrong about me, how people have got the idea that I
7:  retouch & overwork my work I can’t make out! My great fault as
8:  writer is that I cannot bear to re- touch, even to reread anything
9:  when once I have written it. I have three novels, two other books, a
10:  whole box of dreams, all dashed off & then never looked at again. Take
11:  my novel From Man to Man; for 9 years I have not touched or not opened
12:  or looked at any, but the first chapters. The My fault is that I shall
13:  go on producing producing producing, & finishing off nothing in such a
14:  shape that I can present it to the world. If my ambition could wake up
15:  again it would be different, but its quite dead, it seems to me I
16:  can’t rouse it. I write for myself & to myself. This is the secret
17:  of my work as an artist. The very thought that I shall have to publish
18:  seems to seems to kill out my power of work. This is why Karl Pearson
19:  was so good for me. Just for a little time while I was near him, he
20:  woke up my ambition, that is, my wish to express myself to others. He
21:  never taught me anything, he never sympathized with me, he just did
22:  that for him me! I must think & I must produce as long as I live, but
23:  that is for my self. It is against this feeling that I have to fight.
24:  I know what I am & what I can do, what does it matter to me what any
25:  other person says? That’s ^unreadable people^ I’ve just finished a
26:  beautiful dream (to me). Well, why should I sit & write it out now?
27:  The only reason I go on writing ^out^ at all now is because I want to
28:  get a lot of money to help other people to do their work. Oh, I live
29:  other peoples work. I feel ambitious about that.
30: 
31:  Olive
32: 
33:  ^Yes, at heart you & I are at one on that question of the intellect;
34:  you will see if ever I publish one of my novels that we are; but I
35:  would like the qualification given.^
36: 
37: 
38: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/37
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	28 January 1889
Address From	Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 148-9

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 28 January 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Dear Edward,
2: 
3:  If you get to know Mr Pearson well you’ll never say any thing of
4:  anything I’ve told you of other people, men or women. Tell him
5:  anything you like about me, I mean in all that, I know you & feel to
6:  you as a little child does to its mother. But you know I want to
7:  forgive & love every one - not only seem to forgive them, but to do
8:  what will be happiest for them. ^I feel it would be mean of me to try &
9:  come near him.^ Don’t try ever to bring me & him near each other,
10:  dear heart. I’m quite close to him now, but if I had to see or speak
11:  to him the old bitter fight must begin again. You see I can’t feel
12:  to his friends as he feels. I have tried. I can feel all kindness &
13:  love to them, but I must keep far from them. Suppose, dear, I prized
14:  you more than anything in the world, but I couldn’t feel just as you
15:  felt to your friends at Sheffield, say I couldn’t sympathize with
16:  your George & his wife. Well then my love for you would teach me I
17:  must leave you. I would always bring an element of strife, I mean
18:  internal strife into his life if I came into it ^in any way^ & that’s
19:  just what mustn’t enter it. Don’t you see what I mean, the element
20:  of division? I mean if I never see him, but simply write to him I must
21:  influence him in some way. The only one of his friends I feel unity
22:  with is his dearest man friend Parker. Did you see him? But between me
23:  & the others, all his women friends, ^& some of his men friends^ the
24:  Almighty hath set a gulf. I would like him to know I felt he had been
25:  true & generous in all his relations to me, but that’s all. He knows
26:  I love him. Don’t ever mention me to him, dear old Ed’ard unless
27:  he speaks of me, & then just turn it off. Other people need him much
28:  more than I do, & can give him more. My life is so full & joyful with
29:  my work. You understand.
30:  Olive
31: 
32:  ^Do you know that my novel ends by the mother telling her children
33:  they’ll all go up country & dance naked on the rocks!!!^
34: 
35:  ^My brother is selling his big school to a company for £70,000.
36:  Isn’t that a lot!!!! When I print my next book I shall have a lot of
37:  money too & we’ll all have fine times. My little Alice will come &
38:  live with me when she is a doctor. And an old bachelor brother, can
39:  come out to the Cape & see us & we’ll bake him in the sun. Alice
40:  tells me you look happy but not well!!!!!^
41: 
42:  ^Address – Post Restante Mentone, but there’s no need to write.
43:  I’m working.^
44: 
45: 
46: 

Notation
The novel whose end Schreiner refers to is From Man to Man. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/38
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	5 February 1889
Address From	Hotel du Parc, Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 150-1

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 5 February 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Hotel du Parc
2:  Mentone
3:  Feb 5 / 89
4: 
5:  Thank you, Beautiful Boy, for your letter. Yes it’s all right, quite
6:  quite right. I send here a little thought that came into my mind this
7:  afternoon when I was walking up & down my room after I’d got your
8:  letter. I’ve got a most beautiful bit of sea from my window over the
9:  tops to the trees. It was dark blue to-day with little white horses of
10:  foam. There was a fall of snow the day before yesterday & all the
11:  mountains were ^are^ white. How I wish that you could see it, Boy, that
12:  loves the sunshine just as much as I do. It’s such beautiful, cold
13:  weather here.
14: 
15:  You must get out of England a bit this spring, Edward. You wouldn’t
16:  have done all the good work you’ve done this year if you hadn’t
17:  been here last winter. It’s not waste of time sitting in the sun.
18: 
19:  You must always stick up for Ellis if ever you hear anyone talk
20:  against him; he’s one of the quite purest, noblest souls, & people
21:  don’t understand him.
22: 
23:  Olive
24: 
25:  When are you going back to Sheffield? How happy you seem to have been
26:  making Alice & Louie Ellis. Please tell me if your stay in London has
27:  been nice.
28: 
29:  ^I don’t know why I always feel more drawn to ?Oats than any of your
30:  friends you’ve told me about.^
31: 
32:  ^Will send little dream another day. Olive.^
33: 
34: 
35: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/39
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	21 March 1889
Address From	Mentone, France
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 152

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 21 March 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in Mentone from December 1888 to later March 1889 and left there for Paris.

1:  My beautiful old Ed’ard
2: 
3:  I have been clinging to you these last days as a little child clings
4:  to its mother. Some far off day to come it will be seen what a light
5:  you were, how far before your time.
6: 
7:  I have been passing through much darkness, & when I have looked round
8:  the world for a ray of light, I have found you. Go on your path,
9:  Edward, my beautiful brother.
10: 
11:  I am obliged to go to Paris on private business but don’t mention
12:  the fact to anyone.
13: 
14:  I will write & give you my address when there.
15: 
16:  Edward, pray for me. Talking isn’t of any use, but if you should let
17:  your thought go out to me, I think I should feel it.
18: 
19:  Your little thing in W.P.P. is beautiful. I liked about the old
20:  Harpist.
21: 
22:  Edward, I want to love always the poorest, lowliest natures. You are
23:  right, they are nearer God.
24: 
25:  Olive
26: 
27:  There is something wrong, something all wrong in this life of ours. I
28:  have so much to learn.
29: 
30: 
31: 

Notation
The 'little things' refers to a part of Carpenter's Towards Democracy. See: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood; and the 'little thing' is: Edward Carpenter "The Mother to Her Daughter" Women's Penny Paper vol 1 no 21, 16 March 1889, pp.6-7. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/40
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	28 July 1889
Address From	Ladies Chambers, Chenies Street, Camden, London
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 155-6

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 28 July 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Chenies Street between June and August 1889.

1:  Dear Edward
2: 
3:  Please send this to Bob Muirhead. I didn’t see him to say good bye &
4:  so didn’t thank him. I thought I should see him again.
5: 
6:  It is a lovely day here, one almost sees the sky over the houses.
7: 
8:  I wonder how it goes with you at Mill-thorp. I never like to ask you
9:  because I’m always afraid of touching you roughly when I mean to be
10:  quite ^so very^ gentle. I have got my full marching orders for Africa
11:  now. I wonder if you will get yours.
12: 
13:  I wish we could have spent a day up the river together, you & he & I:
14:  it would have been so perfect to have you both: One never hardly loves
15:  two human beings who love each other.
16: 
17:  Good bye. I hope it goes well. I’ll send you a nice savage book soon.
18: 
19:  Olive
20: 
21:  Life is full of compensations. When the desire of the soul is taken
22:  from us she gives us calm.
23: 
24:  You don’t know how beautiful it was with Bob here. Perhaps Bob
25:  himself less than anyone could understand. I don’t myself. He seems
26:  to me to be a bond between me & other human beings.
27: 
28: 
29: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/41
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Saturday 18 August 1889
Address From	Ladies Chambers, Chenies Street, Camden, London
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 156

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 18 August 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Ladies Chambers
2:  Chenies Street
3:  Saturday
4: 
5:  My dear Edward
6: 
7:  If you don’t find the savage book what you like send it back &
8:  I’ll send you a nice one about Malays. I’m reading about nothing
9:  but savages; I don’t care for anything else now. Thank you about the
10:  sandals. I send my measure, a little large, as it’s better than too
11:  small. They will be just the thing because I can’t be bothered with
12:  shoes & stockings there & my feet have got so tender in England that I
13:  shan’t be able to manage the rocks for some time without something on.
14: 
15:  I’m very glad about G Adam’s pictures. It will be a great thing if
16:  he can make any money out of them because then he could give up more
17:  time to his painting. Dr Brown has just sent Alice a splendid skeleton
18:  & beautiful books of prints. He is going to pay entirely for her
19:  education & living & books & all for the next five years. It’s very
20:  beautiful, & she’s to repay him when her fortune is made. It’s all
21:  so happy & nice about her.
22: 
23:  I hope the school gets boys.
24: 
25:  It was funny your following me about like that for three or four days,
26:  & there wasn’t any reason or cause for it! I’m so glad its lovely
27:  at Sheffield. I am Please give greetings to Bob when he comes. I send
28:  him a book of African poems.
29: 
30:  I went for a lovely walk to Regent’s Park this afternoon & sat first
31:  by the lake with the by boats & then among the flowers. I’ve just
32:  got home. It was so beautiful & restful just sitting there & not
33:  thinking of anything! It must be very nice bathing in your stream.
34: 
35:  I’ve taken my passage in the Norham Castle for the 11th of October.
36:  I’ve got a nice deck cabin.
37: 
38:  Goodnight.
39:  Olive
40:  ^
41:  I think I would rather the "general public" didn’t know I was going
42:  to Africa & the date of my going, so don’t mention it - except to
43:  Bob.
44: 
45:  Won’t it be lovely seeing the stars again? I can’t believe it’s
46:  true: Oh the stars.^
47: 
48: 
49: 

Notation
The 'savage book', a 'nice one about Malays' and 'a book of African poems' which Schreiner refers to cannot be established. Rive's (1987) version has been misdated and omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/42
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	4 September 1889
Address From	St Leonards, East Sussex
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 156-7

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 4 September 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in St Leonards for most of September 1889

1:  Dear Edward
2: 
3:  Isn’t the strike splendid? You ought to see the East End now. The
4:  strange, earnest look on the people’s faces, that sort of wide-eyed
5:  look. You look straight into their faces & their eyes look back at you;
6:  they are possessed with a large idea. It’s very wonderful. I went
7:  yesterday to the place where the Salvation Army are giving away tiny
8:  packets of tea. About 500 men were there standing in rows waiting. The
9:  curious, silent, elate atmosphere, the look in the face of the most
10:  drunken old man was wonderful. I think I never felt so full of hope as
11:  yesterday. But perhaps you are here seeing it.
12: 
13:  Yours, Olive
14: 
15: 
16: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/43
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	September 1889
Address From	St Leonards, East Sussex
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 157

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, September 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner stayed in St Leonards for most of September 1889.

1:  Dear Ed
2: 
3:  The sandals are quite perfect. I have already lent one to a woman who
4:  wants to have a pair made like them. But no others will be like them
5:  to me. I value them immensely.
6: 
7:  I should have written yesterday but I had had a blow that somewhat
8:  unfitted me. My dear friend Amy Levy had died the night before. She
9:  killed herself by shutting herself up in a room with charcoal. We were
10:  away together for three days last week. But it did not seem to help
11:  her; her agony had gone past human help. The last thing I sent her was
12:  the Have Faith page of Towards Demo. She wrote me back a little note,
13:  "Thank you, it is very beautiful, but philosophy can’t help me. I am
14:  too much shut in with the personal." You need not refer to all this
15:  when you write. I only tell you that you may know why I didn’t write
16:  sooner. They say the East End women are getting terribly tired of the
17: 
18:  ^strike.
19: 
20:  Olive^
21: 
22:  ^I send you an allegory of mine. Return; don’t show to anyone else as
23:  it is only to appear in the Fortnightly next month.^
24: 
25:  Olive
26: 
27: 
28: 

Notation
The allegory referred to was to have appeared in the Fortnightly Review was in the event turned down because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/44
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	October 1889
Address From	England
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, October 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. It was written immediately before Schreiner sailed to South Africa, in a short period in which she stayed in St Leonards, Eastbourne and also London.

1:  My dear Edward
2: 
3:  What I hope you are finding the work begin satisfactorily. I am
4:  sailing next Wednesday morning from the London dock. If ever you want
5:  to write to me when I am gone address: W.P. Schreiner
6:  Mount Vernon
7:  Cape Town
8:  Africa.
9: 
10:  Thank you for the book. Thank you, Edward, for all you’ve been to me.
11: 
12:  Olive
13: 
14:  The Fortnightly won’t take my article after all says it’s too
15:  strong
16: 
17: 
18: 

Notation
The allegory was turned down by the Fortnightly Review because of its length. See "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part I - Hell" New Review Vol 1, no 11, April 1890, pp.300-309; and "The sunlight lay across my bed: Part II - Heaven", New Review Vol 1, no 12, May 1890, pp.423-431.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/45
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Friday 11 October 1889
Address From	On board Norham Castle, Dartmouth
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 157

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 11 October 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  On Board
2:  Norham Castle
3:  Dartmouth
4:  Friday morning
5: 
6:  Goodbye, dear old Brother. You will have to come out after me some day,
7:  when you hear about the stars & the black people & all the nice
8:  things. I’m going to be quite well. Goodbye.
9: 
10:  Olive
11: 
12: 
13: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/46
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	31 January 1890
Address From	Mount Vernon, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 164

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 31 January 1890, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.

1:  Cape Town
2:  Jan 31 / 90
3: 
4:  My Ed’rd,
5: 
6:  I send you a note I’ve just got from Ettie. It was a great
7:  disappointment to me that she was in such an abnormal condition when
8:  she was in England. You wouldn’t know her if you saw her now, so
9:  pretty, & sweet & fresh. You must come to us some day, you & our Bob.
10:  In about a year time from now I hope to be able to have seen my way
11:  clear to going up to travel in the interior of Africa. If you & Bob
12:  could come then it would be splendid.
13: 
14:  How goes it with you? I wonder if this sunshine would be to you what
15:  it is to me - Life - creeping through every little pore in one’s
16:  body & brain. I had such a glorious day the day before yesterday lying
17:  on the top of a mountain with the sea down at the right, & these
18:  glorious table mountains on my left, & the town a little speck below,
19:  that you couldn’t see, & the bushes & the butterflies about you. It
20:  is like the Riviera only infinitely grander, wilder, brighter,
21:  intenser! But I am afraid to say too much, because of course it might
22:  not be to you what it is to me. It is my land, my own that I have been
23:  longing for in London fogs & summer mist & drizzels, shut-in with
24:  hedges & those terrible high walls in England that nearly break ones
25:  heart.
26: 
27:  I have been making several friends for you here with your books though
28:  as a rule the people are the hardest narrowest hard-shell philistines
29:  that God Almighty ever made.
30: 
31:  How about the school? Goodbye, my old comrade. I’m going tomorrow to
32:  see Bertie Everitt, my convict friend. He is working here on the
33:  breakwater. I like to think he is working under this blue sky. He must
34:  feel a bit free whenever he looks up, whatever he may feel when he
35:  looks down. Give my love to George Adams. I wear the sandals every day
36:  here in the house, they are so nice & cool in this hot weather - but I
37:  love the heat. I bask in the sun, like one of my dear old salamanders.
38: 
39:  Have you heard anything of Karl Pearson: is he well? Oh I wish I could
40:  give him a little of this sunshine.
41: 
42:  Olive
43: 
44:  I’m still living in this big house all alone leave at the end of
45:  March for up country. If you could come then I would take you & show
46:  you the Karroo.
47: 
48: 
49: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/47
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 15 February 1890
Address From	Mount Vernon, Gardens, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 164-5

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 15 February 1890, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.

1:  Sunday morning
2:  Beautiful blue sky. Mountains twirling up into it.
3:  Feb 15 / 90
4: 
5:  Dear Edward,
6: 
7:  I have just come back from the convict station where I’ve just been
8:  to see a lad with beautiful blue eyes. He has still 6 years to serve.
9:  He stood on one side of the wooden palings & I on the other, & He a
10:  police man between us. Behind us in the great yard were rows of
11:  convicts black & white in their marked dresses. I wanted to put my
12:  arms round them all. It was beautiful that the blue sky was over us
13:  all. Upwards we are all free, we can only chain each other sideways.
14:  He always seems to belong to me more than anyone in Cape Town. You
15:  must come out, & see the sunshine some day. I’m glad your work goes
16:  well. It’s beautiful to be here in a country where there are no
17:  hungry & over-worked.
18: 
19:  I am living here in this big house alone, & I have been wanting to get
20:  a woman to come for the day just to help me scrub the floors & I am
21:  quite willing to pay 5/- a day, but I can’t get one though I’ve
22:  been trying for weeks. That sounds good doesn’t it. Servants & hand
23:  workers of all kinds can ask pretty much what they like here. Brain
24:  work is not quite so much in request.
25: 
26:  I leave this at the end of March for a solitary place up in the Karroo
27:  about two hundred miles from here called Matjesfontein.
28: 
29:  ^Good bye love to George Adams. ^
30: 
31:  Olive
32: 
33: 
34: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version of this letter has been misdated, omits part of the letter, and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/48
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: October 1889 ; Before End: March 1890
Address From	Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, October 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.

1:  Cape Town
2: 
3:  Dear Ed,
4: 
5:  I expect you are all at Abbottsholm. Just a word because I want to
6:  communicate with you but I’m too stupid to write. It’s better here
7:  than I could have dreamed. I am going out to Vischhoek tomorrow.
8:  Address Vischhoek, Somerset West, Hotten-tots Holland, Cape of Good
9:  Hope. I’m going to have a "house" with only one little room bedroom
10:  & sitting room all in one.
11: 
12:  This land is too beautiful. You must see it some day.
13: 
14:  Olive
15: 
16:  ^Give my love to George^
17: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/49
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	19 April 1890
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 169

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 19 April 1890, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  A wild place in the Karroo
3:  200 miles from Cape Town.
4:  Hour; 10 at night.
5:  Sky; dark: mixed stars & dark clouds.
6:  Date April 19 / 90.
7: 
8:  Dear Ed’ard,
9: 
10:  It’s a long time since a word passed between us. I’ve been living
11:  up here for about a year ^month^ now. I am enjoying the wild, barren
12:  karroo & the old stars, & the sunlight, & the thunderstorms even more
13:  than I had hoped, & I am very strong & well. I have three tiny rooms
14:  where I live alone & go over the way to fetch my meals. I shall likely
15:  be here for the next six months, all through our winter. It is already
16:  very cold, we are three thousand odd feet above the sea, & in winter
17:  the snow has to be shovelled away from the doors. But it is dry
18:  cutting cold. I like it almost as well as the hot weather. I am
19:  working when I’m not walking up & down & looking at the sky.
20: 
21:  I am going to go up into the interior in 6 or 7 months time. I My
22:  plans are slowly ripening. Please tell me a little about yourself when
23:  you write. I am very happy, & it’s all right with me.
24: 
25:  Give my love to our Bob. He’s the only friend I’ve made in the
26:  last three & a half years. He’s precious to me as a snowdrop in
27:  winter. I used to make many friends before, now my heart feels kind to
28:  everyone but I have no personal feeling to. He is the only person has
29:  made me love them, & I feel so grateful to him. I think I should
30:  always care about his wife & children & anything that belonged to him.
31:  Mrs Walters wrote to me a little time ago. She too seems to have seen
32:  Reddie as he is. There are many Hottentots & Bushmen near here, but
33:  they are all half civilized & always drunk. The way people drink in
34:  this country is simply terrible.
35: 
36:  Do you know How did your visit to London go off? Fancy there really is
37:  a London! It’s all such a dream to me all life.
38: 
39:  I’ve not any books at all here, & only see a newspaper once a week.
40: 
41:  Goodnight.
42:  Olive
43: 
44: 
45: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/50
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	20 July 1890
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 176

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 20 July 1890, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  Cape of Good Hope
3:  South Africa
4:  July 20 / 90
5: 
6:  It was such a surprise & pleasure to get your letter last mail. I
7:  thought you had quite forgotten me Here in my solitude I can forget no
8:  one. I don’t know what I told you or didn’t tell you when I last
9:  wrote. This is a place up in the solitude of the dear old Karroo where
10:  I have been four months & am like to remain another six at least. It
11:  is not a farm because no farming goes on here but it all belongs to
12:  one man from whom I hire the little cottage I live in by myself. No, I
13:  have no friends here, but I am very friendly with all the Bushmen
14:  Hottentots Kaffers & am very well & very very happy.
15: 
16:  I can understand now why that English life was such a death to me,
17:  shut out from the sun & mountains & planes that had made all my life
18:  before I went there. Of course it’s so beautiful to think of you all
19:  & feel I have you all safe in my heart forever & I am so thankful I
20:  had that life, but it will be a long time before I want any more of it.
21: 
22:  Yes, I heard my good friend Karl Pearson was to be married: he wrote
23:  me a note. I think it is the best thing that could have happened to
24:  him & that he will be very happy.
25: 
26:  I really have nothing to tell you, leading this quiet, happy life up
27:  here. I write a little, & read a great deal, & wish I could give you
28:  just one peep at our glorious sunsets.
29: 
30:  Now I’ve given you all my news you must write soon again & tell me
31:  all about you all about you all. Give my love to our dear Bob when you
32:  write; & to George Adams when you see him, & come out here some day. I
33:  am sure you would see the beauty of my land so great so wild so
34:  untamed. I am still working up steadily towards my trip to the
35:  interior, gaining exact information as to what to take &c, & finishing
36:  my books which are to take me.
37: 
38:  Please give my love to Isabella Ford if you should see her, I’ve
39:  been so glad to hear about her story but have not been able to see it
40:  up here. I am just reading Stanleys Travels.
41: 
42:  Good bye.
43:  Always yours
44:  Olive Schreiner
45: 
46: 
47: 

Notation
The 'books which are to take me' refers to the projected 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa', and From Man to Man. The 'Stray Thoughts' essays were originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', with most of them written or drafted while she was in Matjesfontein. Although later prepared for book publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. 'Stanleys Travels' is likely to be: Henry Morton Stanley (1878) Through the Dark Continent London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington; or else, Henry Morton Stanley (1890) In Darkest Africa London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/51
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	4 September 1890
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 176-7

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 4 September 1890, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  Sep 4 / 90
3: 
4:  Dear Edward
5: 
6:  You seem to have got very far from me some how Bob says he won’t
7:  come with me up country, but I dropped the last half of his letter
8:  before I had read it & couldn’t find it. Perhaps he said he might.
9:  I am really seeing my way to the end of my work, & not long after Xmas
10:  I shall be able to give up all my time to working getting things ready
11:  for a start. That will take a couple of months.
12: 
13:  Oh the heavens are such a clear, lovely blue here. You can’t think
14:  how near Heaven one feels when one looks up at it. I hope you will see
15:  it some day. Those people you want won’t come to you, and those you
16:  don’t, will.
17: 
18:  I am going to have a great joy next week, perhaps; my brother is
19:  coming to stay two days with me. He’s such a noble fellow. Not a
20:  socialist in theory, but more of a socialist in practice than any man
21:  I know. Very broad & willing to let everyone go their own way. He’s
22:  a barrister.
23: 
24:  I wish you could see the wonderful little plants here. Do you know
25:  I’m beginning to feel I should be quite
26: 
27:  ^Have you heard anything of my dear old Friend Karl Pearson lately? Is
28:  he married I’m sure he’ll be very happy & have the best of all
29:  possible lives. ^
30: 
31:  Olive
32: 
33:  Address Matjesfontein
34:  Cape Colony
35:  South Africa
36: 
37: 
38: 

Notation
'My work' refers to the articles Schreiner originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. Most of these essays were written or drafted while she was in Matjesfontein. Although later prepared for book publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. Riv'?s (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/52
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	22 April 1891
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 191-2

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 22 April 1891, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  April 22 / 91
3: 
4:  My dear old Edward
5: 
6:  Why comes it in my heart tonight to write to you. I am sitting here in
7:  my little house alone with my lamp hanging over me, & suddenly just as
8:  I was going to turn in for the night the thought came I wanted to
9:  write. Perhaps it’s because a little while ago I was outside looking
10:  at the moonlight & felt so rested by it, & all restful & complete
11:  things remind me of you.
12: 
13:  I really haven’t any news to give you. I’m living on here quietly
14:  enough with nothing ever happening & quite happy. I could live here
15:  forever if the warm weather would only last, but we are at the
16:  beginning of winter. I may have to go down the mountains a bit &
17:  return here when it gets spring again. I wish you could see our spring
18:  here in the karroo, all the barren plains one carpet for of flowers
19:  for two months. I hope you have come back strengthened & body & full
20:  of hope from India. Doesn’t the black nightmare of city life in
21:  England seem like a dream out here in the sunshine? But you know, I
22:  don’t think all people feel it as black as we do or this clear air
23:  as beautiful. I know people who say they would rather endure a black
24:  fog in a black slum than live the life we of solitude in a place like
25:  this. Yes, you must come here some time.
26: 
27:  Give my love to our Bob, I’ve been going & going to write to every
28:  week. He’s one of the people I shall never forget as long as I live.
29: 
30:  How is my dear friend Adams? Give him my love.
31: 
32:  Did you see my friend Nelly in India?
33: 
34:  I am so unreadable
35: 
36:  Edward, isn’t it good to realize that there are other problems
37:  besides our Socialist problems, & other conditions of life quite
38:  important & beautiful besides ours? That’s the good of travelling.
39: 
40:  I’ve got some beautiful friends out here. I’ll show you when you
41:  come.
42: 
43:  Olive
44: 
45: 
46: 

Notation
Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/53
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	16 February 1892
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 200

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 16 February 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand. The address the letter was written from is provided by content.

1:  My dear Edward,
2: 
3:  I’m some how wanting to hear from you & I don’t! Bob wrote to me
4:  the other day, but didn’t give me any news of you, beyond saying "I
5:  suppose Edward has told you his own news." Of myself there is
6:  absolutely nothing to tell. I am in one of those stages when one is
7:  simply shaping what one has & setting it down. I write a good deal,
8:  not altogether badly. You see I have now more to set down, at least in
9:  the form I wish, than I could well do in twenty year. Many conceptions
10:  that lay before me clear, but too spread out for me to grasp, I am
11:  getting my fingers round a little. But the work will sh seem very
12:  small when it is done. I am still living alone at Matjesfontein. What
13:  of George coming out? That he would be better off here than at Home
14:  there is not the smallest doubt. How good it would be to see you out
15:  here. You ought to come first & spy-out the land. Come? What are you
16:  doing?
17: 
18:  Good bye. I’ve sent for the new Towards D. Love to George & my dear
19:  old Bob if you are writing.
20: 
21:  Olive.
22:  ^
23:  Do you know a man, now out here, called Lionel Bradford? He is very
24:  like Karl Pearson. What do you think of him? I am strongly attracted
25:  to him in a sense, & in a sense repelled.
26: 
27:  Olive
28: 
29:  This question is only for you if you care to answer it.^
30: 
31: 
32: 

Notation
The 'good deal' that Schreiner was writing concerns the articles originally published pseudonymously from 1891 on as by 'A Returned South African', intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. They and some related essays were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa. The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1885) Towards Democracy Manchester: John Heywood. Rivess (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/54
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Sunday 11 April 1892
Address From	Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 202-3

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 11 April 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date and month have been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Sunday night
2:  Cape Town
3:  1892
4: 
5:  Dear Edward
6: 
7:  It is lateish & I am sitting upstairs in my little room in a boarding
8:  house & soon going to bed, I’m just writing to tell you that I’ve
9:  got Towards Democracy. Just the same morning a few hours before, I
10:  bought a copy of the new edition for my friends, Captain & his wife. I
11:  don’t know if I ever told you about them, he is consumptive &
12:  staying out here for his health, & his wife is going to have a little
13:  baby next month. He’s so like you, & all his ideas are so like yours
14:  that we’ve given him the name of Edward Carpenter, & his wife & I
15:  are beginning to think it is his real name. When I went to their
16:  little rooms tonight I found them reading TD. This I think put it in
17:  my head to write to you. Come out here, old Ed’ard. I want you to
18:  see Table Mountain. Tell our Boy, I wish I could show it him too.
19:  There’s no news to give you of myself. All things continue as they
20:  were in the beginning. I think this edition splendid of TD. To One Dead,
21:  seems to me new, any-how, it never struck me in the same way before.
22:  Good night dear old Brother.
23: 
24:  Olive
25: 
26:  Love to dear old George. There is plenty of room for you all in dear
27:  old Africa. Come, but come about Nov October so that you may have all
28:  our beautiful summer. Even here, the winter comes.
29: 
30: 
31: 

Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1892) Towards Democracy London: T. Fisher Unwin. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/55
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	23 May 1892
Address From	Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 206

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 23 May 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Cape Town
2:  May 23 / 92
3: 
4:  Dear Ed
5: 
6:  It’s nice to think of you being in the world somewhere. It’s nice
7:  to think of all the beautiful souls everywhere. I’m sitting alone in
8:  my upstairs bedroom in a unreadable boarding house. It’s cold winter
9:  weather with pouring rain; it’s almost like England. H I’ve got no
10:  news to give you.
11: 
12:  I’ve been sorry about those anarchist troubles. I’m so sorry our
13:  people do such things. I’m going to get Plato to read tomorrow to
14:  make the sky bluer.
15: 
16:  There are no people that think or care about social or impersonal
17:  subjects in this country, that I’ve found. They are all philistines.
18:  Its so funny to find a whole nation of philistines without the other
19:  element at all. I’m getting more used to it, & up at Matjesfontein
20:  in the beautiful Karroo one doesn’t feel it at all. It’s a lovely
21:  life up there in the summer.
22: 
23:  I’ve found a couple of people who can understand England’s Ideal a
24:  little, but they are from England. People here think anyone is mad who
25:  supposes that anyone could perhaps think anything nicer than a great
26:  deal of money. It’s a curious, curious study this whole society. I
27:  wonder what you would make of it!!
28: 
29:  Good bye Ed.
30:  Olive
31:  ^
32:  Loving greetings to my old friend George. In weather like this one
33:  feels he is almost as well in England but in three months the rain
34:  will be over & the spring back again.
35: 
36:  OS^
37: 
38: 
39: 

Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/56
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	After Start: October 1889 ; Before End: March 1890
Address From	Mount Vernon, Cape Town, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, October 1889, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. On returning to South Africa in October 1889, Schreiner stayed mainly in the Mount Vernon house belonging to her brother Will and his wife Fan until she removed to Matjesfontein in March 1890, with some short visits elsewhere.

1:  Mount Vernon
2:  Cape Town
3: 
4:  Dear Edward
5: 
6:  I’ve written to you, but I can’t find the letter now.
7: 
8:  Write to me please sometimes. I’ve said so much in that other letter
9:  told you how the sunshines & all that, I can’t tell it again. I am
10:  sending you some photographs.
11: 
12:  Good bye
13:  Olive
14: 
15:  You know I’ve been ill all the while or I would have written last
16:  week, because I want to hear from you.
17: 

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/57
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1892
Address From	na
Address To	Millthorpe, Holmesfield, Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 210

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The year of this letter has been derived from the otherwise illegible postmark on an attached envelope, which also provides the address it was sent to.

1:  They are bring out a cheap 2/- edition of S.A.F. I’m glad because
2:  the only people are I really care to read it are people struggling
3:  with material want & the narrowness & iron pressure of their
4:  surroundings who won’t be so likely to get a ^more^ expensive book.
5:  The only thing that ever induced me to write it out was the feeling
6:  that some soul struggling with its material surrounding as I was might
7:  read it & feel less alone.
8: 
9:  I hope some day when your tired I’ll be able to help you a little as
10:  the thought of you helps me.
11: 
12:  It’s very splendid here: even when it snows the air is clearer than
13:  in London.
14: 
15:  Do you keep well in this terrible weather
16: 
17:  Olive Schreiner
18: 
19:  I liked your paper in To-day.
20: 
21: 
22: 

Notation
The start of this letter is missing. Carpenter's paper in an issue To-day in the 1892 issues has not been established because the relevant issues in the British Library are not available for conservation reasons. Rive's (1987) version omits part of the letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/58
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	23 November 1892
Address From	Matjesfontein, Western Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 215-6

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 23 November 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections.

1:  Matjesfontein
2:  S. Africa
3:  Nov 23 / 92
4: 
5:  I’ve been lying in bed all day & reading that book of Francis Adams
6:  you sent me. It’s the first thing I’ve read with keen pleasure for
7:  a long time. I liked it better to day than ever before. Edward, you
8:  don’t know how bad things are in this land; we flog our niggers to
9:  death, & wealth as the only possible end & aim in life, is more
10:  recognized here than, I think, in any country in the world. I don’t
11:  mean that there aren’t classes who don’t feel so in every country,
12:  but then there are other classes, here there are not. It’s funny to
13:  be in a land which is all philistines! Good, nice, respectable
14:  philistines, but still nothing else. There are other individuals, but
15:  no other class. There are money making whites, & down-trodden blacks,
16:  & nothing between. And things will have to be so much worse here
17:  before they can be better; in Europe we have almost got to the bottom
18:  already & the tide is going to turn. I’m coming back in April, I
19:  think I told you to England. I hope I’ll see you. I’ll be there
20:  from the beginning of May to the end of July: then I must go abroad
21:  again, either to the Engadine or Egypt. I thought Africa would make me
22:  better, but it’s been an unremitted down hill all the time.
23:  I was so glad to feel when I was reading Adams’s book today how
24:  little the world needs one, how much better & stronger folk than
25:  oneself there are to carry on all work that one fancies one has to do.
26:  I don’t know why that book seemed such a help to me today. Our warm
27:  weather is going to begin at last. Its so beautiful to know it must
28:  come. This has been the coldest year that the oldest people in South
29:  Africa remember. We have had more cold & rain this November than we
30:  generally have in the depth of winter. Is your book about India out?
31:  Do you know Francis Adams? Are you fit?
32: 
33:  Good bye. Love to all Friends.
34:  Olive
35:  ^
36:  Bob doesn’t like my little story so I’m sure you wont. But anyhow
37:  it’s true!!
38:  OS^
39: 
40: 
41: 

Notation
Which particular 'little story' Muirhead did not like cannot be established. The books referred to are: Francis Adams (1890) Songs of the Army of the Night London: Vizetelly & Co; Edward Carpenter (1892) From Adam’s Peak to Elephanta: Sketches in Ceylon and India London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Riv'?s (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/59
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	25 December 1892
Address From	Ganna Hoek, Cradock, Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 216-7

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 25 December 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. Schreiner stayed with her friends the Cawoods on their Ganna Hoek farm over Christmas 1892.

1:  Xmas day
2:  1892
3: 
4:  Dear Ed
5: 
6:  I want to write to you this day. It’s so nice here. I’m staying at
7:  the old farm where I used to live when I was a young girl & where I
8:  finished part of An African Farm. It’s a beautiful, wild place, one
9:  of the most beautiful in the world & I wish you were here to see it. I
10:  always have been thinking of you since I came here. The wild bush of
11:  mimosa thorns comes right down to the house & its full of wild animals.
12:  The other day we caught a little baby monkey with a long tail in the
13:  tree just behind my window, & there are heaps of Baboons one hears
14:  fighting in the trees. The day before yesterday we killed two snakes.
15:  Early in the morning I was walking on the mountain reading by myself,
16:  & almost trod on one. Soon after in the house, the girl was making the
17:  tutors bed, & she heard something fall off. It was a cobra, & we’ve
18:  got them both in bottles. I like to feel this wild, untamed life with
19:  "the will to live" still strong & untamed in it, seething about one.
20:  It makes the old strength come back into ones heart. It’s
21:  beautifully hot here. You know how lovely that is, the fierce clear
22:  sunlight shining full on you. Yesterday I went alone on the top of a
23:  koppje & took off all my clothes & wandered about for hours in the hot
24:  dry sand & thorny bushes. Its delightful to feel the sand direct on
25:  one. In England it’s so cold one must cover & peep & have conviction
26:  of ?sin all the while. I’m staying here with a big family a father &
27:  mother & eleven children, nearly all grown up. They are such a
28:  beautiful big family you’d enjoy seeing them all round the table.
29:  The day after tomorrow we are going to make a big party & climb the
30:  high mountain behind the house.
31: 
32:  A young farmer who lives 30 miles off is coming with his two sisters
33:  to go with us. He’s a beautiful fellow draws me greatly, he’s
34:  something like Waldo, but fiercer & stronger. One day he may make one
35:  of the few & first men who have ever made a stand in South Africa.
36:  That is my dream for him. Now in our public life all is low low ebb.
37:  It has almost broken my heart. I’m so glad to get away here for a
38:  little while to this dear old wild nature. There are big leopards in
39:  the bush & every thing nice. I like them better than politicians. One
40:  feels so sure here, that everything is in a transitional state, & that
41:  the bigger time is coming some day. It’s harder to feel it in the
42:  world. If ever you come to Africa you must come & stay here with these
43:  friends of mine. I’ll give you a letter of introduction, & they’ll
44:  all love you. Everyone is very busy now reading Morris’s "News from
45:  Nowhere" which I brought with me. I’m going to send them all your
46:  books. I’ve been here nearly a month now & must soon be moving on to
47:  see my little mother. I shall only be able to stop in England three
48:  months, say May, June & July, then it’ll be too damp. Will you try &
49:  let me have a look at you while I’m in London?
50: 
51:  The sad side of our life in Africa is our native question. I’m
52:  writing a paper on it now.
53: 
54:  How does the world go at Mill Thorpe. Drop me a line if you have time.
55:  Love to George & his wife, & send this note on to our Bob because I
56:  haven’t time to write him any Xmas letter.
57: 
58:  Your little sister
59:  Olive
60: 
61:  The tutor here is a young consumptive Englishman from Oxford whom I
62:  got a place here for because he was very ill in Cape Town. He’s a
63:  socialist, the only socialist I’ve seen since I left England. People
64:  haven’t heard of socialism here, except a few workmen in the big
65:  towns.
66: 
67:  ^All the people here about still call me "de kleine schoolmisses" "the
68:  little schoolmistress" it’s so nice & so funny. All my English life
69:  seems sometimes a dream, only when I walk alone in my old places in
70:  the bush I feel a lot of the fire is burnt out. I wish you could see
71:  these mimosa trees in flower, they are so nice. ^
72: 
73:  Olive
74: 
75: 

Notation
The book referred to is: William Morris (1892) News from Nowhere Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press. Rive's (1987) version omits part of this letter and is also in a number of respects incorrect.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/60
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	1892
Address From	na
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 1892, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. This letter has been dated 1892 because of its place in the archival sequence.

1:  Dear Old Ned
2: 
3:  I’m coming home in April next. It will be beautiful to see you all.
4:  Old Bob & George & all of you. Couldn’t you come out here this
5:  summer & go back with me in April. Summer here is fine, winters are
6:  bad. I’ve had measles been up two months but quite fit again. Very
7:  well & happy.
8: 
9:  Good bye
10:  Olive
11: 
12:  Alice had a peep at you. Said you looked at always. Everyone is very
13:  good & kind to me here, but I want to see my old comrades.
14: 
15:  The only hope for Africa lies in the English people being unwilling to
16:  aid in these these things; but I fear there is no hope; no hope!
17: 
18:  You can have no idea reading the paper at Home, where it will seem
19:  moderate & simple enough, what a storm it has raised in this country.
20:  You know what wildly excited socialist orators say that capitalism is
21:  in England & America; - well, that’s what it realy is here. You
22:  can’t picture anything worse! You don’t know what capitalism is in
23:  England. You’ve never seen a hord of men sweep down on a country, &
24:  take possession of every thing!! lands, mines, public works,
25:  Government, - everything! And we are so powerless. We are just like a
26:  tiny fly caught by the hindlegs in a huge spiders web. It’s no use.
27:  Good bye dear old boy. Cron sends his love to you. So do I.
28: 
29:  Olive
30: 
31: 
32: 

Notation
'The paper' referred to is Schreiner's ' Returned South African no. 1' essay, 'South Africa: its natural features, its diverse peoples, its political status: the problem', which was published in the Fortnightly Review in July 1891 to considerable effect. With a number of companion articles, it was intended for publication in book form as 'Stray Thoughts on South Africa'. However, although prepared for publication, a dispute with a US publisher and the events of the South African War prevented this. With some related essays, they were posthumously published as Thoughts on South Africa.

Letter Reference	View Edward Carpenter 359/61
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	18 July 1893
Address From	High Field, Ben Rhydding, North Yorkshire
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Edward Carpenter, 18 July 1893, Sheffield Libraries, Archives & Information, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to the Sheffield Archives, Sheffield Libraries, Archives and Information Services, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Archive Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  Highfield
2:  Ben Rhydding
3:  nr Leeds
4:  Yorkshire
5: 
6:  Dear Ed,
7: 
8:  I think though you are not there I shall come to Millthorpe on Tuesday
9:  thought you are not there, & see the cottages.
10: 
11:  My plans are all very uncertain, Edward. I would unreadable like to
12:  talk some matters over with you. But I don’t know if I don’t find
13:  I can stay at Millthorpe I shall either go to St Leonards for a bit or
14:  go on the continent, but I don’t want to go quite alone. I’m so
15:  ghastly sociable nowadays. unreadable
16: 
17:  I must see you sometime, dear. I want to tell you about so many things,
18:  Africa, & the sunshine, the beautiful sunshine. In Africa is a man I
19:  love & who loves me, but I’m not quite sure that marriage would be
20:  right; & you know Edward the curious thing is that I want to marry
21:  that man, to be always where he is, see him when I go to bed & when I
22:  rise in the morning & every day at the table, & all day long & all my
23:  life long till I’m an old old old woman. Now that’s a funny thing
24:  because that’s just what I’ve never felt before! I’ve loved
25:  Ellis, & Karl Pearson, & so many men & women, but I’ve never felt,
26:  "I want to be with you always." And it puzzles me so that I should
27:  have that feeling! Please He loves your books very much, I’ve given
28:  them to him, he’s just been reading them, & writing to me about
29:  England’s Ideal. He’s not like Bob; he’s such a fiercely strong
30:  passionate impulsive kind of man, I have to be so gentle & sweet when
31:  I’m with him to make up for it!!! I think you would love him, but I
32:  don’t know if it would be right for me to marry him because of
33:  another woman. I left Africa, because I wanted to feel I was removing
34:  from him any undue fascination I might be exercising over him; & I
35:  don’t suppose we shall ever see each other again. But I feel it
36:  would be so nice to live all my life with him. It’s that feeling
37:  that I can’t understand.
38: 
39:  Our sweet Bob looked a little better I thought but still seemed to me
40:  tired & weak. Yes, he would make an ideal husband, but and I hope the
41:  woman he loves will be worthy of him. I understand now how people want
42:  to be married & live all their life in one house.
43: 
44:  I hope you are having a good time in London. People are very nice &
45:  good here especially dear Mrs Walters. It will please her so if you
46:  send a message to her, do when you write again. She hungers so for
47:  love, & has so little. She is very patient & brave.
48: 
49:  Good bye, dear old Edward.
50:  Olive.
51: 
52: 
53: 

Notation
The book referred to is: Edward Carpenter (1887) England’s Ideal London: Swann Sonnenschein & Co.