Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Edward Carpenter 359/74
Archive	Sheffield Archives, Archives & Local Studies, Sheffield
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	27 July 1895
Address From	The Homestead, Kimberley, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Edward Carpenter
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 254-5

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, 27 July 1895, 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:  The Homestead
2:  July 27 / 95
3: 
4:  Dear Edward
5: 
6:  I am sending you Cron’s little paper. It was very amusing when Cron
7:  read it. No one in room had ever heard of you. I do not believe there
8:  were above two people who had ever heard of such a thing as Socialism,
9:  & they didn’t know any thing about it! One good fellow got up & said
10:  they had been very much interested in the paper, & from what Mr
11:  Schreiner had said, I of course felt sure that Mr Carpenter was a very
12:  good man - what what could Mr Carpenter mean by speaking as he did
13:  about respectability"!!! It was all so funny, but I think it will do
14:  good. The Editor is printing 2000 copies in leaflet form, & it may
15:  lead to people in this country buying your books, & so getting new
16:  views with regard to respectability.
17: 
18:  I am very strong & well & working hard. I work just all the time. My
19:  sweet husband grows more & more precious to me as time goes along.
20:  Give my love to Lucy & George & Max & especially to my old friend Mat
21:  if you see him. I want to write a long letter to Kate Salt. But I want
22:  to write to her about things that I can’t, just yet. I am sending
23:  two little photos for her to your care. Please see that she gets them
24:  safely.
25: 
26:  Goodbye to you all.
27:  Olive
28: 
29:  Cron and I are preparing a paper which he is to read in the Town on
30:  "the political situation." Of course its anti-Rhodes & anti-capitalist.
31:  The Political Association are ^going to reprint it, & distribute it
32:  all over the country. I’ll send you a copy.^
33: 
34: 
35: 

Notation
'Cron's little paper' cannot be established; The paper Schreiner is 'preparing' is her The Political Situation, which Cronwright-Schreiner read out as a public address in Kimberley Town Hall in August 1895. Rive's (1987) version of this letter is in a number of respects incorrect.